As the new head of the American space agency, billionaire Jared Isaacman, announced this Thursday, NASA will return Crew-11 astronauts to Earth early due to a medical incident involving one of the crew members. This is the first incident the executive, tech mogul, aerobatic pilot and commercial astronaut has dealt with since US President Donald Trump reinstated him after previously expelling him over his friendship with Elon Musk.
“Yesterday, January 7, a crew member aboard the station was injured and is stable,” Isaacman said during a news conference. “After discussions with the Director of Health and Medicine, Dr. J. D. Pouk and with the management of the agency, I decided that it is in the interests of our astronauts that the crew of 11 return to the planned departure,” he announced. In the coming days, the Dragon Endeavor spacecraft will depart from the ISS to deliver astronauts to Earth. The return of the crew-11 astronauts was scheduled for March 2026.
Before Isaacman confirmed the early return of Crew-11, NASA had previously announced at a news conference that it was postponing a spacewalk outside the ISS because of a medical incident that came to light this Wednesday.
The agency avoided revealing the name of the sick crew member for privacy reasons. Dr. Paul reiterated that he is in stable condition.
ISS Commander Michael Finke and Flight Manager Zena Cardman were scheduled to leave the space station for the six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk, which will focus on power upgrade work, the agency said.
On Aug. 1, Crew-11 blasted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket and was scheduled to remain for six months, ending in the first week of February.
“Our crews receive intensive training to manage medical contingencies and other unusual events, including the on-board training we regularly conduct for such situations. Yesterday was a classic example of this learning in action. After the situation on the station stabilized, after careful discussions, we made the decision to return Crew 11 while ensuring minimal operational impact to ongoing work aboard the ISS,” said Amit Kshatriya. deputy administrator of NASA.
For his part, Dr. James Polk, NASA’s medical director, explained: “We have a very complete medical team on board the International Space Station, but we don’t have the full amount of equipment that we would have in an emergency room, for example, to evaluate a patient. In this particular incident, the medical equipment was enough for us to be concerned about the astronaut and want to do an evaluation. And the best way to do that is on the ground, where we have all the medical tests Given that the astronaut is completely stable, it’s not an emergency evacuation, but we don’t disembark and remove the astronaut immediately, but there’s still that lingering risk and there’s still the question of what the diagnosis is.
