NASA is ending Crew-11 astronauts’ mission a month early

NASA has decided to bring the Crew-11 astronauts home a month earlier than originally planned due to a “medical concern” with one of them. It is the first time in its history that the space agency is cutting a mission short due to a medical issue, but it did not identify the crew member or disclose the exact condition and its severity. The agency is aiming for a return date before January 14, with the exact schedule depending on the weather. If NASA’s original plan succeeds, the crew will touch down off the coast of California at approximately 3:40 a.m. on January 15.

The agency had earlier postponed an International Space Station (ISS) spacewalk scheduled for January 8, citing a medical concern with a crew member who arrived a day earlier. NASA’s chief health and medical officer, James “JD” Polk, said the affected astronaut is “absolutely stable” and not a case of emergency evacuation. The ISS has “a robust set of medical hardware,” he said, but not enough for a thorough workup to determine a diagnosis. Without proper diagnosis, NASA does not know whether astronauts’ health may be negatively affected by the environment on the ISS. That’s why the agency is erring on the side of caution.

Crew-11 left for the space station on August 1 and was to return to Earth on or around February 20. After they leave the station, only three people will remain: two astronauts and an astronaut who will be in charge of all the experiments currently being conducted in the orbiting laboratory. The team’s replacement, Crew-12, was scheduled to depart for the ISS in mid-February, but NASA is considering sending astronauts to the station before then.

Update, January 10, 2025, 5:15am ET: This story has been updated to include Crew-11’s tentative return date.