4 crew members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission to the Worldwide Area Station
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That is the primary time astronauts have been evacuated from the Worldwide Area Station (ISS) for medical causes. The precise nature of the “medical situation” has not been specified for privateness causes, nor has the astronaut affected been recognized. Nevertheless, 4 of the seven ISS crew members returned house early.
The astronauts returning to Earth are members of the Crew-11 mission, which launched on August 1 and was initially scheduled to return in late February. At a press convention on January 8, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman He mentioned one of many causes for the choice to carry the astronauts house early was that just about the entire mission’s targets had been accomplished, so ending the mission early was not a giant deal.
“This isn’t an emergency evacuation because the astronaut is totally secure,” NASA’s chief medical officer of well being mentioned. James Polkthroughout a press convention. “We’re not going to drop off the astronauts immediately,” Isaacman mentioned, including that emergency medical evacuation may happen inside hours, however the crew can be evacuated inside days.
Medical accidents have occurred on the ISS up to now, however till now they’ve been minor sufficient to be handled in orbit. “The Worldwide Area Station has a really sturdy suite of medical {hardware} on board, however we do not have the complete quantity of {hardware} that you’d have in an emergency division, for instance, to finish a affected person workup,” Polk mentioned. “The medical incident was sufficient to make us fear concerning the astronauts.” [and] We need to full that workup, and one of the best ways to finish that workup is on the bottom. ”
The 4 members of Crew 11 (two NASA astronauts, one Russian astronaut, and one Japanese astronaut) will return house aboard the identical Dragon spacecraft that despatched them to the ISS, though solely one among them is sick or injured. A number of medical amenities on Earth might be pre-arranged to obtain affected crew members for testing and therapy. Though the state of affairs is unprecedented, Isaacman mentioned the precise evacuation course of will not be a lot completely different from how crew members usually return to Earth after a mission.
“There have been many fashions over the 25-year historical past of the Worldwide Area Station that mentioned we must always have performed a medical evacuation about each three years, however till now, we’ve not had one like that,” Polk mentioned.
With this evacuation, just one NASA astronaut and two Russian astronauts will stay on the ISS till the arrival of the Crew-12 mission. The launch was initially scheduled to happen round February fifteenth, however it could be moved ahead resulting from this incident.
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