The four astronauts of Crew-11 are leaving the International Space Station on Wednesday and will return to Earth on Thursday.
They are cutting their mission short due to a medical issue for one of the members. NASA has not disclosed which one is ill and what the actual problem is.
With their departure, only three people will be on the ISS until Crew 12 launches. They had planned to go to the station in mid-February at the earliest.
NASA said astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fince, JAXA’s Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos’ Oleg Platonov will fly home, leaving NASA astronaut Chris Williams and cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikasev on the ISS.
This is the first time in history that a crew has ended a mission early because of a health concern, Space.com reported.
Crew 11 was supposed to be on a six-month mission, starting in August 2025 and ending in late February.
The capsule is expected to undock from the ISS at 5 p.m. ET and will splash down at about 3:40 a.m. ET Thursday, CNN reported.
The trip will be about 11 hours in orbit, according to Space.com.
“Weather is looking excellent for Dragon’s parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of California at 3:41 a.m. [EST] on Thursday,” NASA said.
In preparation for Wednesday’s trip to Earth, the departing astronauts packed up and reviewed the procedures for their return, NASA said. They also transferred hardware that had been stowed on the SpaceX Dragon to the ISS.
They also held a change of command ceremony between Fince and Kud-Sverchkov.
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