NASA considers bringing forward the return of Crew-11 due to an astronaut’s health problems and postpones the spacewalk

Miami.- NASA announced this Thursday that it is considering bringing forward the return of Crew-11 to Earth due to health problems of an astronaut on board the International Space Station (ISS), which caused the postponement of the first spacewalk of the year, scheduled for this Thursday. “The agency is monitoring a health issue with a crew member that arose Wednesday afternoon aboard the orbital complex,” the U.S. space agency initially said in a statement. A subsequent update revealed that the space agency is “actively evaluating all options, including the possibility of ending the Crew-11 crew mission ahead of schedule,” and that it will reveal more details throughout this Thursday.

You can also read: Trump’s nominee to head NASA urges the Senate to confirm him before lunar mission

Crew-11 docked to the orbital laboratory last August and its return to Earth was not scheduled until mid-February, as part of the ISS personnel rotation program. In addition to NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, who were going to perform the first spacewalk of the year today, the other two members of Crew-11, which arrived at the ISS last July, are Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov. However, NASA did not reveal which crew member was affected by the health problems.

The Space Agenda

The spacewalk was scheduled for 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time (13:00 GMT) and was planned for Fincke and Cardman to finalize the preparation of an energy channel for the deployment of solar panels and carry out experiments with microbes and microorganisms.

This was going to be the tenth spacewalk for Fincke, who becomes the sixth NASA astronaut to reach this number, and the first for Cardmand. The space agency has scheduled another spacewalk for next January 15th, which it did not report as being affected by the medical problems reported today.

You may be interested in:

In it, two new astronauts will install a new navigation aid for visiting spacecraft, and relocate an old ammonia service bridge, a set of flexible hoses that connect parts of a fluid system. 

To date, 270 spacewalks have been performed on the ISS since December 1998. The longest took place in March 2001, when James Voss and Susan Helms spent 8 hours and 56 minutes outside.