A concerning development began unfolding in orbit on Wednesday, as NASA officials revealed a health incident that led to the postponement of a planned spacewalk aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
“NASA is postponing the Thursday, Jan. 8, spacewalk,” read a portion of a statement that appeared on the official ISS blog on January 7, adding that NASA officials were “monitoring a medical concern with a crew member that arose Wednesday afternoon aboard the orbital complex.”
The unnerving news from NASA arrived in the middle of a week already filled with unrest related to a tragic incident in Minneapolis, which involved the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old woman by an agent with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In NASA’s initial update, few details were provided about the nature of the “medical concern” that led to the postponement of the spacewalk, citing privacy issues that the agency said made it inappropriate “for NASA to share more details about the crew member” at that time.
“The situation is stable,” the statement from NASA Communications added, noting that “NASA will share additional details, including a new date for the upcoming spacewalk, later.”
Expedition 74 Sees an Interruption
The developments aboard the ISS arrived as NASA’s Expedition 74 crew had been completing final preparation for what would have been its first spacewalk of 2026.
According to initial plans, astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman were scheduled to conduct a six-and-a-half-hour excursion that would begin a series of power system upgrades, including installing hardware and routing cables for future roll-out solar arrays.
In addition to plans related to the spacewalk, the ISS crew has been involved in research this week that includes physics and microbiology experiments, with additional research involving Earth observation, studies on cryogenic fluid storage, ultraviolet microbial disinfection, and AI-assisted transcription of crew activity logs.
Amid the Expedition 74 team’s work, international crew members were also providing support for their operations, according to an update issued at the ISS blog earlier on the same day that the medical situation was later revealed. At that time, NASA officials said support teams had continued to undertake overnight imaging of Earth and maintenance of station systems, operations which were expected to continue during Thursday’s planned spacewalk.
Hellbound and Down 