WASHINGTON – The four crew members of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 have been given the “Go” for undocking from the International Space Station on Wednesday, according to the space agency.
NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov have reportedly been spending the days leading up by packing, reviewing return-to-Earth procedures and taking care of other hardware tasks.
The undocking from the space station is scheduled at 5:05 p.m. EST Wednesday. Splashdown off the California coast is expected at 3:41 a.m. Thursday, according to SpaceX.
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Crew-11 launched in August from Florida’s Space Coast and was supposed to last until mid-February. A medical situation on board the space station forced NASA to consider ending the mission early and, eventually, to make the cut official.
The matter involved a single crew member who was not identified and was stable at last mention, according to NASA’s statements.
“They wanna get this person back on the ground in a hospital where they can do the kind of diagnostic tests that you just can’t do aboard the space station,” CBS News space consultant Bill Harwood said.
Harwood told your Cape Canaveral Community Correspondent James Sparvero about how space shuttle astronauts have also come home early, but for technical reasons.
NASA has plans now for deeper space exploration.
As soon as next month, in a mission around the moon, Artemis II plans to fly farther away from Earth than any crew before, and that’s just the start of America’s new space race.
Harwood said there could be concerns regarding future missions in space if there are medical emergencies on the way to Mars.
Only three people will be left on the space station once the SpaceX crew Dragon spacecraft leaves. Past that point, Expedition 74 will be commanded by Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov leading Flight Engineers Sergei Mikaev and NASA Flight Engineer Chris Williams, NASA’s blog states.
[WATCH AGAIN: SpaceX, NASA launch Crew-11 astronauts to space station from Florida coast]