Four astronauts had to cut their mission on board the International Space Station short after a “medical concern” forced NASA to return them to Earth weeks early.
The space agency has been incredibly careful about not revealing too much in an effort to “protect the crew’s medical privacy.” We don’t know which of the four crew members — including NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov — fell ill. We also don’t know anything about what the medical issue actually was.
Now, Fincke has revealed a tantalizing clue about what went down during the first medical evacuation in the space station’s 25 years of continuous occupation. During their first public appearance following the medical evacuation on Wednesday — during which all four members appeared to be doing well enough to field questions — Fincke said that an onboard ultrasound machine “came in super handy” when “we had this emergency.”
“It really helped,” he added. “Of course, we didn’t have other big machines that we have here on planet Earth. We do try to make sure that everybody before we fly are really, really not prone to surprises.”
“But sometimes things happen and surprises happen, and the team was ready,” Fincke said.
Yui agreed with that sentiment.
“We can handle any kind of difficult situation,” he told reporters. “This is actually very, very good experience for the future of human spaceflight.”
While we now know that identifying the medical issue involves using a portable ultrasound machine, we’re still left guessing, since a litany of diagnoses can involve the versatile gadget.
After splashdown, the team was helicoptered to the Scripps Memorial Hospital in San Diego via helicopter for a “planned overnight stay at a local medical facility for additional evaluation,” and was “released as expected,” per NASA.
Among other things, ultrasound can be used to identify issues affecting muscles, joints, and tendons. Considering one of the most common types of injuries on board the space station is musculoskeletal in nature — a 2020 report suggests exercise is ironically the number one source of injuries — it’s entirely possible one of the crew members had injured themselves.
Medical professionals also use ultrasound for cancer screening and checking heart valves for leaks and clots, which could certainly make for an extremely serious situation on board the space station that would warrant an evacuation.
To be clear, NASA hasn’t revealed any details about what caused the agency to orchestrate the first-ever medical evacuation. And whether it ever will remains unclear. Before even jumping into questions during Wednesday’s conference, Cardman preempted any probing questions.
“Just to say it upfront, we are not going to be identifying the crew member or talking through the differential or any of the details of the medical situation,” she said. “Thank you so much for respecting our agency.”
Nonetheless, given the stakes involved, this month’s evacuation is a first test in case things were to go wrong during even longer missions into deep space — like NASA’s Artemis 2 mission to the Moon, which is scheduled to launch just over two weeks from now — in a possibility that the agency will have to prepare for no matter what.
“How we handled everything all the way through nominal operations to this unforeseen operation, it really bodes well for future exploration,” Fincke said.
We’re a well-honed machine here at Johnson Space Center and around the world,” he added. “So when we’re getting ready for Artemis, I am very optimistic.”
More on the situation: Astronauts Helicoptered to Hospital After Mystery Evacuation From Space Station