Space station medical issue could mean early end to Crew-11, NASA says

Richard Tribou, Orlando Sentinel on Jan 8, 2026

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NASA announced a single crew member suffered a medical situation Wednesday on board the International Space Station that forced the postponement of a planned spacewalk. It has since said the crew member is stable, but that the Crew-11 mission may need to leave earlier than planned.

“Safely conducting our missions is our highest priority, and we are actively evaluating all options, including the possibility of an earlier end to Crew-11’s mission,” NASA posted on its website. “These are the situations NASA and our partners train for and prepare to execute safely. We will provide further updates within the next 24 hours.”

The postponement was originally announced stating NASA was monitoring a medical concern that arose Wednesday afternoon.

“Due to medical privacy, it is not appropriate for NASA to share more details about the crew member,” NASA had stated.

The spacewalk was to have involved veteran NASA astronaut and space station commander Mike Fincke, 58, along with NASA’s Zena Cardman, 38, a flight engineer, both members of Crew-11, which launched from Kennedy Space Center on Aug. 1 last year.

The other two members of Crew-11 are JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui, 55, on his second mission to space, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, 39, on his first spaceflight.

The quartet were not slated to return to Earth until the arrival of Crew-12, which NASA had slated for launch no earlier than Feb. 15, although NASA has sent crews home earlier before the arrival of their relief in the past.

The space station has three other members on board including NASA’s Chris Williams and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Mikaev, who flew to the station on a Soyuz spacecraft in November.

Fincke, a member of the 44-candidate NASA class of astronauts chosen in 1996 known as The Sardines, is amidst his fourth trip to space. His previous missions included the last flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour in 2011. Cardman, the commander of Crew-11, is the final member of the 2017 class of astronauts known as The Turtles to make it to space.

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