Sick astronaut back on Earth by Thursday, nature of ailment remains undisclosed

NASA astronaut Mike Fincke has handed command of the ISS to Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov as Fincke and the rest of Crew-11 are scheduled to head back to Earth on Wednesday.

The departure is more than a month earlier than planned and comes after NASA's decision to end the Crew-11 mission due to a medical concern involving one of the four astronauts. The issue could not be addressed using the facilities aboard the orbiting outpost.

NASA ended a tumultuous week for ISS operations by confirming the return of NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov.

Fincke and Cardman were scheduled to perform activities outside the ISS on January 8. However, the spacewalk was postponed due to the undisclosed medical concern. By the end of the day, NASA confirmed the crew were coming home prematurely.

Assuming factors including weather conditions at ...