Mike Fincke Shares More About His Medical Event

NASA astronaut Mike Fincke is sharing more about the medical event that caused an early end to the Crew-11 mission aboard the International Space Station. In an interview with the Associated Press, he said it happened with no warning and passed quickly, but doctors still do not understand the cause.

Last month, Fincke revealed that he was the ill crew member who prompted the medical evacuation and Crew-11’s return to Earth more than a month ahead of schedule.

On January 7, 2026, the night before he and Crew-11 Commander Zena Cardman were to perform a spacewalk — his 10th, her first — he experienced a “medical event” that NASA declined to disclose for privacy reasons. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman was careful not to label it an emergency and categorized it as a “controlled medical evacuation” not an “emergency deorbit.”

Fincke, Cardman, JAXA’s Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos’s Oleg Platanov splashed down on January 15 off the coast of California. All looked fine as they exited the Crew Dragon capsule onto the recovery ship although instead of directly returning to Houston, all spent the night at nearby Scripps Memorial Hospital near San Diego so as not to reveal who was ill. They also looked fine a week later at a post-mission press conference.

In his statement last month, Fincke expressed deep gratitude to his six ISS crewmates — Cardman, Yui, and Platonov, plus the Soyuz MS-28 crew, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov (Roscosmos), Sergei Mikaev (Roscosmos) and Chris Williams (NASA) — and the team on the ground. “I’m doing very well and continuing standard post-flight reconditioning” at Johnson Space Center.

In an interview with the AP at JSC yesterday, he added a bit more: “out of the blue” he was unable to speak for about 20 minutes. He felt fine before and fine afterwards and doesn’t know why. After numerous post-flight medical tests, neither do the doctors. He won’t provide more information about his medical situation lest other astronauts worry theirs might be compromised in the future.

Crew-11 was five-and-a-half months into their mission with a nominal return in mid-late February. Crew-12 was well into their preparations for launch in early February to arrive in time for a standard several-day handover between crews. NASA was able to accelerate the Crew-12 launch by a couple of days to February 13, but in the interim the Soyuz MS-28 crew had the entire International Space Station to themselves.

Last week, NASA astronauts Jessica Meir (Crew-12 commander) and Chris Williams (Soyuz MS-28 flight engineer) performed the spacewalk Fincke and Cardman had planned to do.