Ailing astronaut returns to Earth early in Nasa’s first medical evacuation

An ailing astronaut has returned to Earth with three others, ending their space station mission more than a month early in Nasa’s first medical evacuation.

SpaceX guided the capsule to a middle-of-the-night splashdown in the Pacific near San Diego, less than 11 hours after the astronauts left the International Space Station. Their first stop was a hospital for an overnight stay.

“Obviously, we took this action because it was a serious medical condition,” Nasa’s new administrator Jared Isaacman said after the landing.

“The astronaut in question is fine right now, in good spirits and going through the proper medical checks.”

It was an unexpected finish to a mission that began in August and left the orbiting lab with only one American and two Russians on board. Nasa and SpaceX said they would try to move up the launch of a fresh crew of four, with liftoff currently targeted for mid-February.

Nasa’s Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke were joined on the return by Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russia’s Oleg Platonov. Officials have refused to identify the astronaut who developed the health problem last week or explain what happened, citing medical privacy.

While the astronaut was stable in orbit, Nasa wanted them back on Earth as soon as possible to receive proper care and diagnostic testing. The entry and splashdown required no special changes or accommodations, officials said, and the recovery ship had its usual allotment of medical experts on board.

The astronauts emerged from the capsule within an hour of splashdown. They were helped on to reclining cots and taken for standard medical checks, waving to the cameras.

Mr Isaacman monitored the action from Mission Control in Houston, along with the crew’s families.

Nasa decided a few days ago to take the entire crew straight to a San Diego-area hospital after splashdown and even practised helicopter runs there from the recovery ship.

The astronaut in question will receive in-depth medical checks before flying with the rest of the crew back to Houston on Friday, assuming everyone is well enough. Mr Platonov’s return to Moscow was unclear.

Nasa stressed over the past week that this was not an emergency. The astronaut fell sick or was injured on January 7, prompting Nasa to call off the next day’s spacewalk by Ms Cardman and Mr Fincke, and ultimately resulting in the early return.

It was the first time Nasa had cut short a spaceflight for medical reasons. The Russians did so decades ago.

Spacewalk preparations did not lead to the medical situation, Mr Isaacman said, but for anything else, “it would be very premature to draw any conclusions or close any doors at this point”. It is unknown whether the same thing could have happened on Earth, he added.

The space station has got by with three astronauts before, sometimes even with just two. Nasa said it will be unable to perform a spacewalk, even for an emergency, until the arrival of the next crew, which has two Americans, one French and one Russian.