JOHNSTON SPACE CENTER — During an early morning press conference, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman revealed on Thursday that a Crew-11 astronaut suffered a “serious medical condition” while onboard the International Space Station last week.
But he stressed that the unnamed astronaut is in stable condition and is currently getting medical care after a successful splashdown off the coast of San Diego on Thursday morning.
What You Need To Know
- The unnamed astronaut is in stable condition and in good spirits, stated NASA
“I think without going … into specifics beyond what was already shared, obviously we took this action because it was a serious medical condition,” Isaacman said of the medical evacuation.
He started the press conference off by recapping the splashdown and how all of the crew members were safe and in good spirits.
NASA astronauts Cmdr. Zena Cardman, pilot Michael Fincke, and mission specialists Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov will be flown to a hospital in San Diego from the recovery ship Shannon, said Joel Montalbano, deputy associate administrator of NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate.
Montalbano added that all four of the Crew-11 members will spend the night at the hospital and once given the all clear, will be flown to Houston to be reunited with their loved ones. They may be at the Johnson Space Center on Friday, he said.
Last week, one of the four astronauts suffered an undisclosed medical episode, but was in stable condition.
This was the first medical evacuation in the 25 years since the International Space Station has been in full service. The situation prompted NASA to cut the Crew-11 mission short, as it was supposed to end in February.
Officials stressed that this was not an emergency de-orbit.
“If it’s a medical thing and you need to get home, you’d come home anywhere in the world and we’d use the U.S. military to get to them as quickly as we can. And then from that, we’d figure out what the next steps would be,” Montalbano explained if it had been an emergency situation.
During a question-and-answer session, Isaacman told Spectrum News that it was premature to speculate on the astronaut’s future in space.
“I would, I would think it’s incredibly premature to even, you know, consider that right now. The highest priority is, you know, the health and welfare of our crew members. They just executed, I mean, a near-perfect mission on orbit,” he said. “So, I said that during the initial press conference that I think regardless of the phase of flight we were in on the timeline on the expedition, we would arrive at the same conclusion. What Crew-11 did to make this so much easier is, is executing so well on all of their scientific, scientific objectives. So, in that case, the crew did a fantastic job. And I think that would reflect well on future crew selection criteria.”
The Crew-11 members take a moment to strike a pose. Mission specialist Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, left, NASA pilot Michael Fincke, NASA Cmdr. Zena Cardman, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission specialist Kimiya Yui. (NASA pilot Michael Fincke)
Because all four astronauts had extensive medical training, they were well equipped to care for the crewmember who suffered the medical episode, Isaacman said. He said the level of care the astronaut received would have been the same if a medical doctor was onboard the space station.
He added that it is unknown what caused the medical episode and did not think it was preparing for a scheduled spacewalk.
In what was supposed to be a six-hour spacewalk, Fincke and Cardman were going to install a modification kit and cables for a future rollout of a solar array on Thursday, Jan. 08.
“I mean, this is something that could have happened on Earth, you know, completely outside the microgravity environment, at that point. I don’t think we know that versus just being in microgravity versus potentially interactions, experiments. We, I just think it would be very premature to draw any conclusions or close any doors at this point,” Isaacman said.
He said that a medical professional may be on future missions like going to Mars.
NASA will review what happened and whatever lessons are learned will be adopted to future missions, Montalbano said.
Anthony Leone
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