NASA has announced the date of evacuation of its Crew-11 astronauts from the International Space Station (ISS). The crew members will board SpaceX‘s Crew Dragon spacecraft which is scheduled to undock from the station at 3:35 am IST on January 15 [5:05 p.m. EST, Jan 14]. Their mission had to be cut short by a few weeks due to a medical issue with one of the Crew-11 astronauts earlier this week.
.@NASA and @SpaceX target undocking Crew-11 from the International Space Station no earlier than 5pm ET on Jan. 14, with splashdown off California targeted for early Jan. 15 depending on weather and recovery conditions. https://t.co/Y89iIj3jEY
— International Space Station (@Space_Station) January 10, 2026
During a press conference on January 9, NASA confirmed its decision to end Crew-11 sooner than planned on medical grounds. In a statement, the agency said that the concerned astronaut’s health is now stable but “due to medical privacy, it is not appropriate for NASA to share more details about the crew member.” Any information on the cause or nature of the illness is also confidential.
The Crew-11 mission is being commanded by NASA astronaut Zena Cardman. She led the team including three others – NASA’s Mike Fincke (pilot), Japan’s Kimiya Yiu (mission specialist) and Russia’s Oleg Platonov (mission specialist). According to NASA, the Dragon capsule will splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California at 2:10 pm IST on January 15 [3:40 am, Jan 15].
Crew-11 is the first space mission for Cardman and Platonov whereas it’s the fourth for Fincke and second for Yui. Fincke is the most experienced among them, having logged 382 days in space prior to Crew-11, followed by Yui, who celebrated his 300th day in space on January 7.
NASA to carry out first medical evacuation from ISS
This is the first time in history that NASA is evacuating astronauts from the space station on medical grounds. The issue had forced the cancellation of a planned spacewalk by Cardman and Fincke on January 8, although, the agency’s chief medical officer Dr. James Polk said that the two were unrelated.
NASA administrator Jared Isaacman emphasised yesterday that “it’s not an emergency de-orbit” and their return will not impact the station’s operational capabilities. The mission launched in August 2025 and the astronauts would have returned next month if all was well.
Their pre-mature departure will leave the space station with just three astronauts instead of the usual seven. NASA’s Chris Williams and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev will manage the ISS operations on their own until Crew-12 arrives in mid-February. They will also be left with just one human-rated spacecraft – the Soyuz MS-28 – at their disposal, which they rode to the station on November 28, 2025.
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