A "Medical Issue" Is Forcing NASA to End a Mission a Full Month Ahead of Schedule

On Jan. 8, NASA announced that it is going to bring back four astronauts at the International Space Station more than a month ahead of schedule because of a "medical issue," per NBC News. This will mark the first time that this kind of issue has led to a change in schedule with the ISS, which naturally led many to wonder what might explain the somewhat unusual news.

Although NASA did not offer many details on the nature of the medical issue, many people were naturally curious about what might have happened. Here's what we know.

NASA pretty explicitly refused to offer any details about what the medical issue affecting the astronaut was, or even which of the astronauts was having the issue. The agency cited medical privacy concerns in refusing to offer more details but did offer that the individual who was facing the issue was "stable."

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said at a press conference that the astronauts will return home in the days ahead, although he didn't commit to a precise timeline.

“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,” he explained. The group leaving the ISS includes NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov.

They are known as Crew-11, and they first arrived at the space station in August and were expected to remain there until the middle of February. In his statement, Dr. Polk said that the situation is stable and that the evacuation is not considered to be an emergency. Instead, he explained that the decision to evacuate the crew was made out of an excess of caution.

“We have a very robust suite of medical hardware onboard the International Space Station, but we don’t have the complete amount of hardware that I would have in the emergency department, for example, to complete a workup of the patient,” he 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.”

After Crew-11's departure, there will be just one NASA astronaut on board, along with three Russian cosmonauts. Crew-12, which was originally scheduled to replace Crew-11 in mid-February, will still join the ISS at some point, although we don't know whether they will be sent up earlier than anticipated or not.

While we don't know the nature of the medical issue on board, it seems that it was severe enough to necessitate an evacuation, but was not a total emergency. It seems possible, then, that we'll learn more about exactly what happened and who was affected in the weeks ahead. For now, though, all we know is that NASA is trying to make sure that the crew on board is safe.