Crew 11 safely splashes down after shortened mission

(Left to Right) Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, NASA astronauts Mike Fincke, Zena Cardman, and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya You inside the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour shortly after splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Long Beach, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. Photo: NASA/Bill Ingalls.

Four space station crewmates undocked and plunged back to Earth Thursday, safely splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast six days after NASA ordered them home early because of a medical issue.

Descending under four large parachutes, Crew 11 commander Zena Cardman, co-pilot Mike Fincke, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov landed in the Pacific near San Diego at 3:41 a.m. EST, closing out a 167-day stay in space.

“On behalf of SpaceX and NASA, welcome home Crew 11,” a SpaceX flight controller radioed.

“It’s so good to be home, with deep gratitude to the teams that got us there and back,” Cardman replied.

SpaceX support crews stationed near the splashdown site quickly reached the gently bobbing spacecraft and hauled it aboard a company recovery ship where flight surgeons were standing by to carry out initial medical checks.

Under strict medical privacy guidelines, NASA has not identified the astronaut who had the medical issue in orbit or provided any details as to its nature.

But the crew appeared healthy and in good spirts as they were helped out of the capsule and onto waiting stretchers — normal procedure for returning station crews — smiling and waving as they began re-adjusting to gravity after five-and-a-half months in weightlessness.

All four were expected to be flown to shore by helicopter for more extensive diagnostic evaluation at an unidentified area hospital.

“All four crew members will be transported to a local hospital for additional evaluation, taking advantage of medical resources on Earth to provide the best care possible,” NASA said in a blog post.

“Following a planned overnight hospital stay, the crew will return to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where they will reunite with their families and undergo standard post-flight reconditioning and evaluations.”

Left behind in orbit were Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, who took over command of the space station from Fincke, and the cosmonaut’s two Soyuz MS-28 crewmates, Sergey Mikaev and NASA astronaut Chris Williams. They were launched last November for a planned eight-month stay in space.

Cardman and her crewmates, launched last Aug. 1, originally expected to come home around Feb. 20 to wrap up a 202-day mission.

But last Wednesday, the day before a planned spacewalk by Cardman and Fincke, one of the four crew members experienced a medical issue of some sort and the next day, NASA managers decided the issue was serious enough to bring the crew home early for a more extensive diagnostic evaluation.

NASA’s chief medical officer said it was not an emergency return, but the decision marked the first time in NASA history that a spaceflight was cut short due to a medical concern.

In a long post on Linkedin, Fincke said the crew was in good shape but he added the decision was “the right call.” In any case, all four looked fit during a change-of-command ceremony Monday when Fincke officially turned the space station over to Kud-Sverchkov.

None of the crew members mentioned the issue in the week between their initial request for a private medical conference and their return to Earth. In a final post on X Wednesday, Yui sent down pictures of Mount Fuji, saying “Hello! The day has finally arrived for our departure to Earth.”

“I haven’t had a chance to photograph daytime Japan recently, but at the very last moment, we passed over the Pacific side of Japan,” he said. “Mount Fuji bid us farewell, adorned with a touch of crimson makeup from the setting sun.

“This is my final glimpse of Mount Fuji from space and daytime Japan! Thank you for the magnificent view!”

The space station is continuously staffed by a crew of seven. Three launch and return to Earth aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft and four fly to and from the lab aboard NASA-managed SpaceX Crew Dragon ferry ships.

Both spacecraft serve as lifeboats during a crew’s long-duration space station stay. If a Soyuz or Crew Dragon flier gets sick or is seriously injured aboard the station, that person is joined by all of his or her crewmates for the flight back to Earth.

With that possibility in mind, NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency, agreed to fly one NASA astronaut aboard each Soyuz and one Russian cosmonaut aboard each Crew Dragon.

The seat-swap arrangement ensures that at least one Russian and one American are always on board the station to operate equipment in their respective modules should one crew ship depart early.

With the departure of Crew 11, Williams will be on his own managing the U.S. segment of the space station until Crew 12 arrives in February.

Crew 12 commander Jessica Meir, a space station veteran, rookies Jack Hathaway and European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, and veteran cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev are officially scheduled for launch Feb. 15. However, NASA and SpaceX are looking into moving that launch up a few days amid work to ready a Space Launch System rocket for takeoff in early February to send four astronauts on a looping fight around the moon.
The high-profile Artemis 2 mission will be the first to send astronauts to the vicinity of the moon in more than 50 years.