NASA is flying a crew home from the International Space Station ahead of schedule for the first time over a medical issue, and it's leaving the orbiting lab with its leanest staff in years. Four astronauts from the Crew-11 mission—Americans Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, Japan's Kimiya Yui, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov—departed the ISS on a SpaceX Crew Dragon Wednesday, sealing the hatch in the afternoon and undocking at 5:20pm Eastern, CNN reports. Splashdown in the Pacific near San Diego is expected around 3:40am. The mission has been cut short by almost a month.
- "Our timing of this departure is unexpected," Cardman said, per the AP, "but what was not surprising to me was how well this crew came together as a family to help each other and just take care of each other."
NASA says one crew member has a health concern but is stable; the agency is not naming the astronaut or disclosing details, citing medical privacy. "Everyone on board is stable, safe, and well cared for," Fincke said in a statement earlier this week. "This was a deliberate decision to allow the right medical evaluations to happen on the ground, where the full range of diagnostic capability exists. It's the right call, even if it's a bit bittersweet."
- Their departure leaves just three people to run the station: Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev and NASA astronaut Chris Williams. NASA has long pushed to keep about seven people onboard to maximize research on the $3 billion-a-year outpost as it nears retirement in the early 2030s.
- With only three, some work will slip: a planned spacewalk to prep the station's exterior for new solar arrays is off for now, though officials say the delay doesn't threaten the ISS's current power needs. Amit Kshatriya, a senior NASA official said the remaining crew "can operate the nominal systems" and "nominal research" until new crew members arrive. NASA is now trying to accelerate the next rotation, Crew-12, which had been slated for mid-February, to get the ISS back to a full crew as quickly as possible.
- Running the station with a skeleton crew adds risk mainly if something breaks outside, former astronaut Garret Reisman tells CNN. A serious fault on the US segment could require a two-person spacewalk, meaning a Russian crewmate might have to suit up in an American spacesuit with limited training—an unlikely but unwelcome scenario.
- The AP reports that computer models predicted there would be a medical evacuation from the space station once every three years, but this is a first for NASA in 65 years of sending humans to space, and a first in the 26 years the ISS has been permanently crewed. The Soviets, however, had to bring cosmonauts back early from space stations in 1985 and 1987 due to health issues, the BBC reports.
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