Crew-11 astronauts say 1st medical evacuation from ISS had a silver lining

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Astronauts on NASA’s newest mission to the International Space Station (ISS) gathered today (January 21) to discuss their time in orbit, as well as their untimely departure.

NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Kimiya Yui of JAXA and cosmonaut Oleg Platonov were launched to the ISS on EspaceXof the Crew-11 mission in early August last year, for what was supposed to be a 6.5-month stay aboard the orbiting laboratory. The quartet, however, returned to Earth before achieving this goal, due to a medical problem that one of them lived.

The astronauts landed in their Crew Dragon capsule January 15about a month before their replacements were scheduled to launch aboard Crew-12 for their own six-month mission. Crew-11 was the first mission to the ISS ever aborted due to astronaut health problems, and so it was a crucial demonstration of their training and preparation, the astronauts said.

“This is actually a very, very good experiment for the future of human spaceflight,” Yui said at a post-mission press conference today.

The fact that crew 11 returned to Earth safely under such unprecedented circumstances shows that astronauts and mission control “can handle any type of difficult situation,” he added.

The ISS has been continuously occupied low earth orbit since November 2000. That this is the first medical evacuation ever required is a testament not only to the training of astronauts at NASA and other space agencies, but also to the resources and preparedness of the station itself to deal with unexpected medical problems.

Although NASA and the Crew-11 astronauts are not revealing the nature of the medical situation or who was affected, citing privacy concerns, Fincke said at today’s press conference that the station’s ultrasound machine plays an important role.

“When we had this emergency, the ultrasound device came in very handy. So I would recommend portable ultrasound devices in the future, of course, for all spaceflights,” Fincke said. “It really helped.”

Such medical diagnostic and treatment technologies will be crucial for missions that send humans deeper into space, where a rapid return to Earth is not possible. And NASA is deeply involved in planning such missions. It is Artemis Programfor example, aims to put astronauts on the moon in a year or two, and possibly establish one or more bases on the lunar surface.

Crew-11’s experience helps build confidence in our ability to achieve such ambitious feats of exploration, Fincke said.

“I’m very proud of the space station that we’ve built and what humans can do, but the way we’ve handled everything from nominal operations to these unplanned operations really bodes well for future exploration,” he said at today’s briefing, which took place in Houston. “We are a well-oiled machine here at Johnson Space Center and all over the world. So when we prepare for Artemis, I’m very optimistic.”

Foregoing the usual period of crew overlap typically practiced with the arrival of a new group of astronauts on the ISS before the departure of another, the Crew-11 astronauts left behind only one crew reduced to three people on board the station. Operating on adjusted schedules to accommodate lack of crew availability, these three are awaiting the launch of Crew-12, which is scheduled for no earlier than February 15, to return the station to its normal complement of seven crew members.