Watch: NASA astronauts splash down on Earth after ISS medical evacuation
Four astronauts have safely returned to Earth following the first-ever medical evacuation from the International Space Station.
A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, Japan’s Kimiya Yui, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego on January 15 at 3:41 a.m. EST (0841 GMT; 12:41 a.m. local California time), News.Az reports, citing Space.com.
The landing occurred approximately 10.5 hours after the spacecraft undocked from the orbiting laboratory.
A SpaceX capsule, carrying a four-member crew home from orbit in a health emergency return to Earth, splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean off California https://t.co/uE8GCsU2tr pic.twitter.com/uuzAKRDfif
— Reuters (@Reuters) January 15, 2026
The crew had originally been scheduled to remain aboard the ISS for about another month but returned earlier than planned after one astronaut experienced a medical issue. This marked the first instance in the station’s history in which a mission was cut short due to health-related concerns involving a crew member.
Fincke, Cardman, Yui and Platonov launched toward the ISS on Aug. 1, 2025, kicking off SpaceX's Crew-11 mission to the orbiting lab for NASA. Ordinarily, such crew-rotation flights last about six months, ending a few days after their successors arrive at the ISS. But something out of the ordinary happened during Crew-11's home stretch.
On Jan. 7, NASA announced it was canceling a Jan. 8 spacewalk by Cardman and Fincke due to a "medical concern" with an ISS crewmember. A day later, the agency said it was ending Crew-11 early to address that concern.
NASA has not identified the affected astronaut or given details about the health issue, citing privacy concerns. But the agency has said the crewmember is stable, stressing that this is not a crisis situation.
"It is not an emergency de-orbit, even though we always retain that capability, and NASA and our partners train for that routinely," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told reporters during a press conference on Jan. 8. Rather, he added, the mission team decided to bring Crew-11 home early because "the capability to diagnose and treat this properly does not live on the International Space Station."
The Crew-11 mission lasted 167 days, with 165 of them spent aboard the ISS. It was the first spaceflight for Cardman and Platonov, the second for Yui and the fourth for Fincke. Yui has now spent a total of 309 days in space, while Fincke's accumulated off-Earth time is 549 days.
"It's so good to be home!" Cardman, Crew-11's commander, said shortly after splashdown. "With deep gratitude to the teams that got us there and back."
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