Crew-11 astronauts arrive in Houston after 1st-ever medical evacuation from ISS

The four astronauts of SpaceX’s Crew-11 mission made it to Houston today (Jan. 16), just a day after their unprecedented medical evacuation from the International Space Station.

The Crew-11 spaceflyers — NASA’s Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Kimiya Yui of Japan and cosmonaut Oleg Platonov — splashed down off the coast of Long Beach, California early Thursday morning (Jan. 15). They then spent a day and night at a local medical facility before heading east to Texas.

“The four crew members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission have arrived at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where they will continue standard postflight reconditioning and evaluations,” NASA officials wrote in an emailed update on Friday afternoon (Jan. 16).

“All crew members remain stable,” the update adds. “To protect the crew’s medical privacy, no specific details regarding the condition or individual will be shared.”

Crew-11 launched in early August for a planned six-month stay aboard the International Space Station. But one of the four crewmates experienced a medical issue in orbit last week, prompting NASA to cut the mission short by five weeks or so.

The orbiting lab is currently staffed by a skeleton crew of three — NASA’s Chris Williams and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev, both of the Russian space agency Roscosmos.

The orbiting lab won’t return to its baseline of seven crewmembers until SpaceX’s Crew-12 mission arrives. Crew-12 is currently scheduled to launch on Feb. 15, though NASA and SpaceX are studying the possibility of moving that timeline up a bit if possible.

Crew-12 isn’t the only astronaut launch that NASA is preparing for at the moment. The agency is also gearing up for the liftoff of Artemis 2, which will send four people on a 10-day mission around the moon.

Artemis 2’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule will roll out to the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday (Jan. 17). If all goes well with the rollout and subsequent testing, Artemis 2 could launch as soon as Feb. 6.