BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — NASA is finalizing plans for the return of Crew-11 after an undisclosed medical issue involving one of the astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
The agency says the situation is stable, allowing the crew to remain in orbit while doctors continue to evaluate the astronaut’s condition. Space analyst Ken Kremer of Space UpClose told us, “Coming back to Earth isn’t a piece of cake either, all right? You’re going to hit three or four G’s, and you’re going to have a lot of stress on your body coming back.”
NASA says it is not making any special accommodations for splashdown. Astronauts onboard the ISS are medically trained and remain in constant contact with flight surgeons on the ground. The station is also equipped with a pharmacy and medical hardware to treat a wide range of conditions—capabilities that have been used repeatedly during the ISS’s 25 years of continuous operations.
NASA’s Chief Health and Medical Officer, Dr. James Polk, says that while the ISS has robust medical tools, it does not possess the full diagnostic capabilities of an emergency department on Earth.
That limitation, combined with lingering risk, has led NASA to plan what it describes as a first-of-its-kind “controlled medical evacuation” from the space station.
Crew-11 launched from Florida’s Space Coast on Aug. 1, 2025, carrying NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Cosmonaut Oleg Platonov.
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