“Four astronauts have successfully departed the International Space Station (ISS) in a historic medical evacuation that took less than a week to plan.

The SpaceX Dragon capsule undocked from the ISS at 5.20pm ET, beginning a roughly 10-hour space flight to their deorbiting point above the US early Thursday morning.

Less than 20 minutes after undocking, the capsule completed two engine burns to move the spacecraft away from ISS and outside of an area known as the 'Keep Out Sphere,' an imaginary safety perimeter around the station to protect it from collisions during docking and departures.

The capsule carrying NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov is expected to splash down off the coast of California around 3:41am on January 15.
……
Crew-11 were not set to return to Earth for another month, but one crew member suffered a serious medical issue on January 7, forcing the cancellation of a planned spacewalk. …”

DailyMail article:
https://mol.im/a/15463545

That has to be pretty scary to have a medical issue, whatever it is in space. Especially arriving to Earth a day later. I hope all are ok.

Pregnancy?

quote:

Originally posted by fischtown7:
Pregnancy?

If so, 24 hrs won’t make much difference.

Unfortunately this got lost in the maelstrom of world events.

When I was born there were no manned space flights. During my lifetime, humanity has orbited the Earth and Moon, and successfully built and inhabited multiple space stations. The concept of planning and successfully executing a rescue mission in space was science fiction.

To plan and successfully execute this mission within the span of 7 days is mind blowing. I realize there were some fortunate alignments but, it happened. Kudos to all involved.

Simplistic statement but what a difference from 2024 and Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore being stuck in the ISS.

All went well, apparently.

“NASA has carried out the first-ever medical evacuation of astronauts from the International Space Station (ISS), rushing a four-person crew back to Earth after an in-orbit health emergency.

The Crew-11 capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, California at approximately 3:41am ET on Thursday, ending a roughly 10-hour return flight after leaving the ISS the day prior.
……
A recovery vessel with medical personnel retrieved the capsule at sea, conducted immediate health assessments, and transported the astronauts by helicopter and jet to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston for further evaluation.

The American space agency has declined to identify the affected crew member or disclose the nature of the condition, citing medical privacy. …”

DailyMail article:
https://mol.im/a/15465199

I'm sure it's serious enough situation if they had to evacuate the crew but in the back of my mind, this how the xenomorph from Alien gets to earth.

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:
I'm sure it's serious enough situation if they had to evacuate the crew but in the back of my mind, this how the xenomorph from Alien gets to earth.

I was thinking more along the lines of The Andromeda Strain. Or some unknown extraterrestrial venereal disease.

I bet three of those guys are not happy, having their big chance to do important stuff on ISS cut short.

They can’t reveal the medical issue due to privacy concerns, but I’m sure it will get out to those in the community…

Glad they are all home safe.

Not faulting anyone, I think it was breast cancer that lead to the Antarctic evacuation. Maybe it was one of the 3 male astronauts, though usually women have more medical issues.

Maybe they were all happy to be back, didn’t look at how long they were up there.