The first medically-triggered early departure from the International Space Station is underway.
After being given the go-ahead by mission managers more than 24 hours in advance, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 undocked from the orbiting laboratory at 5:20 p.m. ET on Jan. 14 and began the journey home.
Onboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule were NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov. Launching together from Kennedy Space Center in August 2025, the foursome spent roughly five months on board the space station, as part of the liveaboard Expedition 74 crew.
The astronauts were slated to spend six months onboard and return around Feb. 20, but NASA officials announced that a serious medical concern befell one of the crew on Jan. 7. While the medical equipment in orbit was enough to stabilize the affected crew member, more care was deemed necessary on the ground, and the call was made to bring them home a few weeks early out of an abundance of caution.
“We don’t have the complete amount of hardware that I would have in the emergency department, for example, to complete a workup of a patient,” Dr. James Polk, chief health and medical officer for NASA, explained. “And in this particular incident, the medical incident was sufficient enough that we were concerned about the astronaut, that we would like to complete that workup, and the best way to complete that workup is on the ground, where we have the full suite of medical testing hardware.”
That being said, space agency officials did not consider this an emergency evacuation. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman noted that almost all of the crew’s objectives were already complete, and standard re-entry procedures would be followed.
That early departure time was scheduled for the evening of Jan. 14, and the crew member was confirmed to be in stable condition upon departure from the International Space Station.
The Crew Dragon capsule Endeavor is expected to splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California around 3:41 a.m. ET on Jan. 15, where weather conditions are expected to be pristine. A press conference featuring Isaacman is scheduled to follow at 5:45 a.m. ET.
Crew-11 comes home after 167 days in space, capping off rookie flights for Cardman and Platanov. Fincke completes his fourth mission to space, reaching 549 days in space upon splashdown. According to NASA, that puts him fourth among NASA astronauts for overall time in space and 20th among all space agencies for cumulative days spent in space. Yui, meanwhile, completes his second flight to space, logging a total of 309 days in space.
NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev will remain onboard the space station continuing Expedition 74, with Fincke handing over command to Kud-Sverchkov on Jan. 12.
They will be joined by NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12, featuring NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Sophie Adenot, and cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, in the coming weeks. That mission is slated to leave from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station no earlier than Feb. 15.
