GROUNDED

NASA Crew Forced to Abort Mission After Medical Issue

Four astronauts will come home early because one of them needs medical treatment.

Four astronauts are to be brought back down from the International Space Station more than a month early because one of them has a medical issue that cannot easily be treated aboard. The mission of the four-person Crew-11 was due to last until around May, but NASA confirmed the astronauts were being brought back early because the unnamed crew member needed treatment. The crew includes two Americans, Zena Cardman and Michael Fincke, Russian Oleg Platonov, and Japan’s Kimiya Yui. NASA is not identifying the crew member or giving any medical details for privacy reasons, but has said they are in a stable condition. According to CNN, NASA’s chief health and medical officer, Dr. James Polk, said on Thursday, “We have a very robust suite of medical hardware on board the International Space Station. But we don’t have the complete amount of hardware that I would have in the emergency department, for example, to complete a workup of a patient. And in this particular incident, we would like to complete that workup, and the best way to complete that workup is on the ground.”