NASA considering action as astronaut suffers ‘medical concern’ 250 miles away from Earth
NASA is considering bringing a team of astronauts home early because of a crew member experiencing a medical issue.
On Wednesday afternoon (January 7), the space agency announced that it has postponed a planned spacewalk scheduled for Thursday outside the International Space Station (ISS) due to an astronaut 'medical concern'.
The statement read: "NASA is postponing the Thursday, Jan. 8, spacewalk outside the International Space Station.
"The agency is monitoring a medical concern with a crew member that arose Wednesday afternoon aboard the orbital complex."
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It continued: "Due to medical privacy, it is not appropriate for NASA to share more details about the crew member. The situation is stable. NASA will share additional details, including a new date for the upcoming spacewalk, later."
Today (January 8), a further update has been shared, confirming that the astronaut is still 'stable' and 'all options are being evaluated'.
The new statement read: "As an update to our earlier communication regarding a medical situation aboard the International Space Station, the matter involved a single crew member who is stable.
"Safely conducting our missions is our highest priority, and we are actively evaluating all options, including the possibility of an earlier end to Crew-11’s mission."
It reassured people that 'these are the situations NASA and our partners train for and prepare to execute safely' and promised to 'provide further updates within the next 24 hours'.
As per the BBC, NASA is most likely in the midst of determining whether the astronaut can safely remain in orbit or whether they should come home early with their crewmates.
A NASA spokeswoman told the broadcasting corporation: "Safely conducting our missions is our highest priority, and we are actively evaluating all options, including the possibility of an earlier end to Crew 11's mission."
As reported by the Guardian, astronauts typically live on the ISS in six to eight month rotations, where they will have access to basic health equipment and medications.
The publication outlines that the crew in question, Crew 11, is made up of four people - however, it's not been disclosed who in the group is having the medical issue.
These are American astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, who are joined Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov.
The quartet launched aboard the ISS in August 2025 on a SpaceX Crew Dragon, taking off in Florida, and were expected to remain in orbit for six months before returning in late February 2026, after being replaced by another four person crew.
Cardman, who is flight engineer, and Fincke, the station's commander, were supposed to go on a 6.5 hour spacewalk yesterday to install hardware outside of the station.
However, as we say, this got called off due to the medical issue.
If Crew 11 were all to come home early, NASA astronaut Chris Williams and two Russian cosmonauts, Sergey Kud Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev, would remain.
Dr Simeon Barber, a space scientist at the Open University, explained to the BBC: "They would all come back together as a team, because, you don't want to leave one or more team member behind."
He added: "The space station is a big, complex feat of engineering, it's designed to be operated by a certain minimum level of crew.
"If Crew-11 were to return early, what the remaining crew would have to do is dial back on some of the more experimental work and focus more just on the housekeeping and keeping the station healthy, waiting for the full complement of crew to be restored."
Madison Burgess