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A spacewalk scheduled for Thursday, January 8, 2026, was postponed due to a medical issue affecting one member of the four-person Crew-11 mission, NASA confirmed. The agency stated that the affected astronaut is stable and will soon return to Earth, marking the first medical evacuation in the ISS\u2019s 25-year operational history.<\/p>\n
The name of the astronaut and the said medical condition have not been disclosed due to privacy concerns. NASA has assured that the affected crew member is currently stable and will soon be brought back to earth, on an undisclosed date.<\/p>\n
Dr. James Polk, NASA\u2019s chief health and medical officer, said that the issue had nothing to do with the spacewalk or preparations for it.<\/p>\n
This will be the first medical evacuation in the history of the orbiting lab, which has hosted rotating astronaut crews continuously since November 2000.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not an emergency de-orbit, even though we always retain that capability, and NASA and our partners train for that routinely,\u201d recently confirmed NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told reporters during a press conference on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe capability to diagnose and treat this properly does not live on the International Space Station,\u201d Isaacman added, explaining why he ultimately decided to speed up the departure timeline.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not an operational issue. This was not an injury that occurred in the pursuit of operations,\u201d Polk said. \u201cIt\u2019s mostly having a medical issue in the difficult areas of microgravity, and with the suite of hardware that we have at our avail to complete a diagnosis.\u201d<\/p>\n