For the first time in the history of the International Space Station (ISS), the US space agency NASA is bringing a crew of four astronauts back to Earth early due to medical problems.
Jan 15, 2026, 05:33Jan 15, 2026, 05:33
The four astronauts undocked from the ISS with a “Crew Dragon” from tech billionaire Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX, as live images from NASA showed.
During Thursday, US astronauts Zena Cardman and Michael Fincke, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonow are scheduled to land in the sea off the coast of the US state of California after around eleven hours of flight.
The four members of the ISS crew.Image: keystone
Last week, NASA first canceled an external mission on the ISS at short notice due to health problems of a crew member – and then announced that it would bring the entire four-person crew back to Earth early because of the problem.
NASA did not want to comment on the identity of the crew member or details of the health problems. The crew member is in stable condition. “Crew 11” has been on board the ISS since the beginning of August and was actually supposed to stay there for a few more weeks. (sda/dpa)