The four astronauts of the mission who had to be evacuated from the space station due to the medical problem suffered by one of them spoke this Wednesday for the first time about this maneuver, which for the US space agency.
As soon as it began, Commander Zena Cardman clarified that they were not going to identify the affected crew member or comment on his health problem. In this way, the press conference has tried to be another closing of the session, but with a big elephant in the room that no one was going to talk about.
Under normal conditions, it should be a formal press conference at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, where the missions to the International Space Station (ISS) end, and which are usually held on the same day that the astronauts return to Earth.
This case was an absolute exception, since the event took place days after the crew landed in the Pacific Ocean last Wednesday, when it was decided that the four astronauts would be transferred to a hospital in San Diego, California, where the crew member affected by a “serious” illness would be treated while the rest underwent check-ups and rested. Until now, it has not been revealed who the affected person is or what ailment he is suffering from.
They are commander Zena Cardman, pilot Michael Fincke, both from NASA, as well as the two specialists, the Japanese Kimiya Yui (from the JAXA agency) and the Russian Oleg Platonov (from Roscosmos).
NASA has not provided any information about the identity of the affected astronaut or his illness. A day after the US agency announced the evacuation, the Japanese space agency JAXA assured the agency that its astronaut, Kimiya Yui, 55, was not suffering from any medical problems.
There is another detail that could have given the key. On January 7, one day before announcing the emergency evacuation, NASA already reported that it was suspending the spacewalk that had been scheduled for January 8. Only Cardman and Fincke were to participate in that operation, so it could be one of them who was affected, although for now it is pure speculation.
The crew spent more than five months in space, including 165 days aboard the orbiting laboratory, traveling nearly 71 million miles and completing more than 2,670 orbits around Earth. While living and working aboard the station, the crew conducted hundreds of scientific experiments and technology demonstrations.
Before the end of their mission, scheduled for March, NASA decided to return the entire team after announcing that one of them suffered from a medical problem that could not be resolved in space. It was not an “emergency,” but it was an “urgency” due to a “serious” problem, as explained by private astronaut and billionaire Jared Isaacman, who has been confirmed as the new administrator of NASA.
The evacuation of the four crew members of Crew-11 began last Wednesday aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule, which took about nine hours to undock from the ISS and return to Earth, falling to a point in the Pacific near the coast of California. About an hour after splashdown and recovery of the ship, the four astronauts emerged through the hatch aboard a ship, all in apparent .
NASA decided that the four crew members would be transferred from the collection ship to a hospital, where they would spend the night. Due to the medical condition of one of them and the fatigue that an evacuation mission like this entails, the transfer to Houston, Texas, was suspended, where the mission would be concluded today under normal conditions. The four astronauts would spend the night in the hospital center and would also all leave the center at the same time.
The space agency is extremely jealous of the privacy of its astronauts, especially in cases of medical problems, as has happened in previous cases in 2024 and in 2020, when a crew member had to be treated in space. That is partly why the four were taken to the hospital, so that the affected person cannot be identified.
This operation could not have come at a more delicate time, as NASA is preparing to launch the Artemis 2 mission in a few days, which will make the first manned trip to the Moon in half a century. However, the new head of NASA assured that this operation, for which there is no precedent, does not affect the current plans for the takeoff of the , which has a first launch window scheduled for February 6.
At this time, the space station has a minimum crew of three astronauts: the American Christopher Williams, and the Russians Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev. Given this scenario, NASA is considering bringing forward the relief mission, Crew-12, which was scheduled for February 15.
One of the reasons why the evacuation did not take place immediately—NASA announced the evacuation on February 8, but the return did not take place until the 15th—was so that they could hand over the things to Williams and so that he could take care of some of the tasks that remain pending. The evacuation has forced the suspension of two space walks, but Montalbano has assured that these are not urgent problems and that they can be safely postponed.
