NASA’s Crew-11 returns after shortened 5 month house mission : NPR

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AP/NASA 4 folks on NASA's Crew-11 mission efficiently splashed down within the Pacific Ocean off San Diego of their SpaceX Dragon capsule after a virtually 10-hour journey from the Worldwide Area Station, finishing the primary medical evacuation from the orbiting lab.

The crew undocked from the station Wednesday at 5:20 p.m. EST because the ISS and capsule flew 260 miles south of Australia.

The splashdown at 3:41 a.m. EST Thursday beneath a cover of parachutes marks the tip of the Crew-11 mission, which was minimize quick by a couple of month. It is the primary time in NASA's historical past {that a} medical subject prompted an early finish to an area mission. It is also the primary medical evacuation in over a quarter-century of steady human presence on the house station.

NASA has not disclosed the identify of the astronaut or the medical subject resulting from well being privateness.

The choice to carry house the crew of NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan Aerospace Exploration Company astronaut Kimiya Yui and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov was made final week. NASA introduced one of many astronauts had a severe however secure situation that prompted the cancellation of a deliberate spacewalk final Thursday. The choice was made the subsequent day to return the astronaut – together with the remainder of the crew – for medical analysis again on Earth. All 4 needed to return as a result of the capsule was their solely experience to and from the house station.

Their mission started on Aug. 1, 2025 with a launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Area Middle in Florida. Since then, the crew has spent a complete of 167 days in house and 165 days on board the house station, logging 2,672 orbits of the Earth – their journey tallying 70.8 million statute miles.

Their departure now leaves the house station with simply three folks. Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Mikayev, together with NASA astronaut Christopher Williams, who arrived on the station in a Soyuz capsule on Nov. 27, 2025, just some hours after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Russia.

Since SpaceX started launching operational missions to the station in 2020, the Worldwide Area Station has usually hosted an operational crew of seven.

The lowered crew means fewer experiments and lowered upkeep can happen on the ISS. SpaceX's Crew-12 mission, the subsequent crew rotation for the station, is about to launch no sooner than Feb. 15 from Florida's Area Coast, carrying NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Area Company astronaut Sophie Adenot and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.