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Astronaut Mike Fincke, commandant of the International Space Station and a subordinate of the unit NASA is bringing location aboriginal adjacent week due to the fact that of a aesculapian issue, said Sunday helium and his crewmates are "stable, harmless and good cared for."
In an Linkedin post, Fincke, 58, said helium and Crew 11 commandant Zena Cardman, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov "are each OK" and that NASA's determination to bring them location up of docket was "the close call, adjacent if it's a spot bittersweet."
He closed the station by saying the unit is "looking guardant to coming location soon - backmost to our loved ones and to resolving immoderate aesculapian questions with the champion attraction available."
A photograph posted by astronaut Mike Fincke shows the Crew 11 fliers preparing their unit suits earlier their instrumentality to Earth this Thursday. Left to right: Cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, Fincke, Crew 11 commandant Zena Cardman and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui.
NASA
If each goes well, Fincke and his crewmates volition bid their 3 presumption colleagues farewell and undock from the outpost astir 5 p.m. EST Wednesday.
At 2:50 a.m. Thursday, the Crew Dragon's braking rockets volition occurrence to dilatory the vessel and driblet it retired of orbit for splashdown successful the Pacific Ocean disconnected the seashore of Southern California astatine 3:40 a.m.
After aesculapian checks aboard a SpaceX betterment ship, the unit volition beryllium flown to enactment by helicopter, wherever a NASA level volition beryllium waiting to alert them backmost to the Johnson Space Center successful Houston.
The astronauts primitively expected to instrumentality to Earth astir Feb. 20, but NASA announced past Friday that Crew 11 had been told to chopped their ngo abbreviated aft a unit subordinate reported a aesculapian contented the time before.
The astronaut successful question was not identified and the quality of the aesculapian interest was not disclosed nether long-standing aesculapian privateness guidelines.
But Fincke's LinkedIn station and a photograph of Crew 11 checking retired their unit suits indicated the problem, immoderate it mightiness be, was not debilitating successful immoderate way.
"This was a deliberate determination to let the close aesculapian evaluations to hap connected the ground, wherever the afloat scope of diagnostic capableness exists," Fincke wrote.
The photo, Fincke added, "was taken arsenic we prepared our abstraction suits for instrumentality - a normal, methodical measurement successful getting acceptable to travel home, and a reminder that this determination was made calmly and carefully, with radical astatine the center."
Crew 11's aboriginal instrumentality marks the archetypal clip successful NASA past that a unit has been told to chopped its ngo abbreviated due to the fact that of a aesculapian issue.
James Polk, NASA's main aesculapian officer, said Friday that according to statistical analyses, "we should person had a aesculapian evacuation astir each 3 years ... and we've not 1 to date."
"Even successful this case, we're erring connected the broadside of caution," helium said. "Again, it's not an emergent evacuation, but we are erring connected the broadside of caution for the unit subordinate and successful their champion interest."
Fincke plans to crook implicit bid of the presumption to cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov during a little ceremonial Monday afternoon.
"What stands retired astir to maine is however intelligibly NASA cares astir its people," Fincke wrote. "Flight surgeons, engineers, managers and enactment teams came unneurotic rapidly and professionally to illustration the champion way forward.
"The crushed teams - crossed ngo power centers and spouse organizations astir the satellite - person been extraordinary. We're arrogant of the associated enactment we've done and the camaraderie we've shared, including immoderate large songs and much than a fewer dada jokes."
With the departure of Crew 11, Kud-Sverchkov and his Soyuz MS-28 crewmates — Sergey Mikaev and NASA astronaut Chris Williams — volition person the presumption to themselves until Crew 11's replacements arrive.
As it present stands, Crew 12 commandant Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot and cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev stay officially scheduled for motorboat Feb. 15. But NASA is moving to determination that people up a fewer days if possible.
"We're leaving the ISS successful large hands," Fincke said. "The 3 crewmates who arrived successful November volition proceed the mission, and they'll beryllium joined by Crew-12 successful conscionable a fewer weeks."
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