Astronaut ejected from International Space Station pays tribute to ‘incredible teammates’

There is no longer any mystery about which astronaut suffered a medical problem aboard the International Space Station last month, forcing NASA to conduct the first medical evacuation.

Astronaut Mike Fincke, 58, identified himself as the person who needed help in a statement published by NASA on Wednesday.

“On January 7, while aboard the International Space Station, I experienced a medical event that required the immediate attention of my incredible teammates,” Finke said in the statement.

Finke said he was “doing very well” and was still undergoing “post-flight repair”, although he did not specify what health issue led to the need for medical evacuation.

Finke was part of the four-person SpaceX Crew-11 mission along with NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and Russian astronaut Oleg Platonov.

Although officials at the time described the situation as stable, it was so serious that it was decided to cut the mission short so Finke could undergo advanced diagnosis and treatment on Earth – resulting in NASA’s first medical evacuation in 65 years of human spaceflight.

Only three crew members were left to keep the ISS operational – one American and two Russians – prompting NASA to halt the spacewalk and reduce research until a new team was launched earlier this month.

But NASA, citing medical confidentiality, declined to disclose which of the four astronauts was ill, nor what the case was.

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Finke and his crew members had their mission shortened by about a month, down from a trip that was supposed to last at least six months after launching in August.

Finke told reporters in January, less than a week after the crew returned to Earth, that the crew had used the onboard ultrasound machine when a medical problem arose on January 7 – a day before a planned spacewalk that was abruptly canceled.

Astronauts already used this equipment a lot to routinely check changes in their bodies while in weightlessness, “so when we had this emergency situation, the ultrasound machine was very useful,” he said at the time.

It was so useful that Fincke said all future space flights should have one. “It really helped,” he said.

In a statement Wednesday, Finke thanked his fellow crew members for “their professionalism and dedication,” as well as health workers at a hospital near San Diego, where the crew crashed on Jan. 15.

“Space flight is an incredible privilege and sometimes it reminds us how human we are,” Fincke said.