The four astronauts landed in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of California, on Thursday night, local time, according to a live broadcast from the US space agency, NASA. Zena Cardman, Mike Fincke, Kimiya Yui and Oleg Platonov traveled in a Dragon capsule from SpaceX.
It has not been revealed which of them is so ill that they had to return home, but NASA announced last week that the mission had to be aborted. This is the first time the United States has ever carried out such an evacuation from space.
This means that the ISS is now down to a crew of just three people. They will not be reinforced until mid-February, when four new astronauts are sent up, including Swedish-American Jessica Meir.
