4-member crew returning to Earth this week after astronaut suffers ‘medical concern’: NASA

Four astronauts are expected to be back on Earth by Thursday — four months earlier than expected —after a crew member involved in the mission suffered an unspecified medical problem, NASA officials said.

Members of the SpaceX Crew-11 will be coming home sooner than originally planned with the US space agency preparing to undock from the International Space Station around 5 p.m. eastern time Wednesday, officials said.

The crew will then travel inside the Dragon spacecraft and land off the Californian coast around 3:40 a.m. on Thursday, NASA said.

The abrupt change in plans is the result of a crew member dealing with a “medical concern,” NASA said, though the agency could not reveal more due to privacy rules.

The agency did make clear the astronaut was in stable condition.

NASA astronaut Mike Fincke handed over command of the space station to Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov early Monday.

“We got a great team, everybody really rose to the occasion for our expeditions and it’s really been a pleasure to be here,” Fincke said during the hand-off.

Fincke will be traveling back with Zena Cardman, who is another NASA astronaut, as well as Kimiya Yui of the JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and Oleg Platonov of Roscosmos.

Three crew members who were shot up to space in November will remain aboard the orbital outpost until SpaceX Crew-12 members arrive in February for a nine-month mission.

The four members coming home were first launched into space in August and were supposed to get back on solid ground by May.

“I’m proud of the swift effort across the agency thus far to ensure the safety of our astronauts,” NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said at a press conference announcing the sudden end of the mission last week.

With Post wires