Four astronauts safely returned to Earth early Thursday, capping a dramatic and unusual week in space that required the crew members to leave the International Space Station about a month earlier than planned because of a medical issue that arose in orbit.
NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of San Diego, at 3:41 a.m. ET after a nearly 11-hour journey.
“On behalf of SpaceX and NASA, welcome home, Crew-11,” mission controllers radioed to the astronauts moments after their Dragon capsule hit the water.
Their return was the first time in the space station’s 25-year history that a mission was cut short because of a medical issue.
Because of medical privacy concerns, NASA has not disclosed the identity of the affected crew member or given any details about the medical incident. It said, however, that the situation was stable and not considered an emergency.
At a news briefing last week, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the decision to bring the crew members home early was made out of an abundance of caution.
The medical issue forced NASA to call off a planned spacewalk on Jan. 8, which was to have Cardman and Fincke perform upgrades to the exterior of the ISS.
Before he left the orbiting outpost, Fincke said he and his colleagues were “stable, safe and well cared for.”
“This was a deliberate decision to allow the right medical evaluations to happen on the ground, where the full range of diagnostic capability exists,” Fincke wrote in a statement on LinkedIn. “It’s the right call, even if it’s a bit bittersweet.”
The astronauts returned to Earth in the same SpaceX Dragon capsule that they flew to the space station in.
The journey home was a smooth one, with mission controllers reporting “pristine weather conditions” at the splashdown site off the coast of California. The capsule’s drogue and main parachutes successfully deployed minutes before landing, slowing the spacecraft before it hit the water.
