WASHINGTON, Jan 8, 2026, 18:12 EST
- NASA ordered SpaceX Crew-11 to return early after a medical situation involving one astronaut; the crew member is stable.
- A planned Jan. 8 spacewalk was called off as NASA weighs mission impacts and a new timeline.
- NASA will update the expected undock and re-entry schedule in the next two days.
NASA ordered four astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) to cut their mission short and head back to Earth early after a medical situation involving an unnamed crew member, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said on Thursday. “It’s in the best interest of our astronauts” to return Crew-11 ahead of schedule, he told a news conference. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nasa-officials-space-station-medical-issue/
The step is rare for a station that has run on fixed rotations for more than 25 years, and it underscores the limits of medical workups in microgravity — near weightlessness — even with trained crews and flight surgeons on the ground. Chief health and medical officer J.D. Polk said the return was not an emergency, but NASA was “erring on the side of caution,” according to AP. https://apnews.com/article/1a6f794035be86582025c196f8f9e7b5
It also matters operationally: bringing the full Crew-11 team home at once would cut the station’s on-board staff from seven to three until the next crew arrives, tightening timelines for maintenance and handovers. NASA has not set a departure date yet and said more detail on the undock and re-entry plan would follow. 1
NASA first disclosed the problem late Wednesday, saying it was “monitoring a medical concern” that arose earlier that afternoon aboard the orbital laboratory. The agency said it would not identify the astronaut or provide details because of medical privacy, but described the situation as stable. 2
In an overnight update, NASA said the issue involved a single crew member and that managers were evaluating “all options,” including ending the mission early. NASA said it would provide further updates within 24 hours. https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/spacestation/2026/01/08/international-space-station-update-2/
Crew-11 — NASA’s Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russia’s Oleg Platonov — launched Aug. 1 aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and had planned to return around Feb. 20 after their replacements arrived, CBS News reported. In a brief radio exchange on Wednesday afternoon, Yui asked mission control to set up a private medical conference. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/an-astronaut-medical-concern-prompts-nasa-to-delay-planned-spacewalk/
The scrubbed spacewalk — known as an extravehicular activity, or EVA — would have been Cardman’s first and Fincke’s 10th, tying a NASA spacewalking record. The pair was preparing work linked to upgrades that support roll-out solar arrays designed to boost station power. 3
But an early return could ripple through a packed January schedule of spacewalks and visiting cargo vehicles, with some station work already sliding. ISS operations integration manager Bill Spetch said teams were already trying to “look for a time, maybe in the spring” to finish parts of the solar-array preparation, Spaceflight Now reported. https://spaceflightnow.com/2026/01/07/nasa-postpones-first-spacewalk-of-2026-due-to-a-medical-concern-with-an-iss-crew-member/
NASA officials said the medical issue was unrelated to station operations and did not call it an emergency, but they still plan to bring the crew back together on the same capsule. Spacewalks have been canceled before over spacesuit problems and other health concerns, though missions have usually run their planned length, French tech site Presse-citron reported. 4
