OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
11:10 AM – Friday, January 9, 2026
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has announced that it is initiating a controlled medical evacuation of the four-person SpaceX Crew-11 mission from the International Space Station (ISS) due to a serious but stable medical condition affecting one unidentified crew member.
This will end their mission approximately one month earlier than planned, as it was originally set for late February 2026 after handover to Crew-12, with return expected in the coming days via their Crew Dragon spacecraft.
At a news conference on Thursday, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced the news, stating, “Yesterday, Jan. 7, a single crew member on board the station experienced a medical situation and is now stable. After discussions with Chief Health and Medical Officer, Dr. JD Polk, and leadership across the agency, I’ve come to the decision that it’s in the best interest of our astronauts to return Crew-11 ahead of their planned departure.”
SpaceX Crew-11, comprised of American Mission Commander Zena Cardman, American Pilot Mike Fincke, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Russian Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, will be returning to Earth on the SpaceX Dragon Endeavor reusable spacecraft in the coming days.
“Because the astronaut is absolutely stable, this is not an emergent evacuation; we’re not immediately disembarking and getting the astronaut down. But it leaves that lingering risk and lingering question as to what that diagnosis is, and that means there is some lingering risk for that astronaut on board,” said Dr. James “JD” Polk.
“We are erring on the side of caution for the crew member and in their best interest and in their best medical welfare,” Polk added.
Polk noted that this is the first time in the 25-year-long period of human inhabitance on the station that a medical evacuation has been necessary. To maintain medical privacy, the agency is withholding the name of the impacted astronaut and the details of their condition.
Additionally, NASA announced earlier this week that it was postponing a planned spacewalk for the two American members, which would have taken place on Thursday. Polk said that the medical concern had nothing to do with the spacewalk, however, and the difficulty mostly arose from “microgravity.”
In 2021, U.S. astronaut Mark Vande Hei’s planned spacewalk was canceled due to a pinched nerve in his neck. Another was canceled in 2024 due to an astronaut experiencing “spacesuit discomfort.”
With the crew’s departure, NASA’s medical physicist Christopher Williams and Roscosmos’ cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev will be the only remaining operators on the ISS.
Crew-11 arrived at the International Space Station on August 1, 2025, with a scheduled departure for February — once their successors, Crew-12, arrive via SpaceX Dragon.
While the Crew-12 launch is set for no earlier than February 15th, Isaacman clarified that any adjustments to its timeline would not affect the Artemis II lunar mission, as the two are “totally separate campaigns.”
Artemis II, the first crewed flight of the Orion spacecraft, will see four astronauts orbit the Moon to test the advanced technology required for deep space exploration.
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