Nasa postpones spacewalk due to medical issue with astronaut | Nasa
NASA has aborted a mission aboard the International Space Station after an astronaut suffered a medical problem.
The space agency announced Thursday that the four-person U.S.-Japanese-Russian crew will return to Earth in the coming days, earlier than expected.
NASA has canceled its first spacewalk of the year due to health concerns. The space agency did not identify the astronaut or the medical problem, citing patient confidentiality. The crew member is now stable.
“This is not an emergency evacuation, but we are erring on the side of caution with the crew member,” said Dr. James Polk, NASA’s chief medical officer.
The four-person crew arrived at the orbiting lab via SpaceX in August for a stay of at least six months. The crew included NASA’s Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, as well as Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russia’s Oleg Platonov.
Fincke and Cardman were supposed to perform the spacewalk to prepare for a future deployment of solar panels to provide additional power to the space station.
It was Fincke’s fourth visit to the space station and Yui’s second, according to NASA. This was Cardman and Platonov’s first space flight.
“I am proud of the agency’s rapid efforts thus far to ensure the safety of our astronauts,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman.
Three other astronauts currently live and work aboard the space station, including NASA’s Chris Williams and Russians Sergei Mikayev and Sergei Kud-Sverchkov, who flew off in November aboard a Soyuz rocket for an eight-month stay. They are expected to return home this summer.
NASA has called on SpaceX to possibly remove the space station from its orbit by the end of 2030 or the beginning of 2031; plans call for safe re-entry over the ocean.
