NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, a key player in the agency’s commercial crew program development and one-time crewmate for Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Josh Kutryk, revealed Wednesday (Feb. 25) that he was the astronaut requiring an expedited return to Earth during his recent International Space Station (ISS) mission.
Fincke was most recently the pilot aboard SpaceX Crew-11, a four-astronaut mission to the ISS. On Jan. 7, NASA disclosed that an unidentified astronaut had fallen ill on the eve of a planned spacewalk, for reasons unrelated to the extravehicular activity. After considering options, and saying that the astronaut was stable, NASA elected for an expedited (non-emergency) return of Crew-11 a few weeks earlier than planned.
The agency did not initially disclose the name of the astronaut or the nature of the medical issue, due to privacy reasons. The Jan. 15 splashdown off the coast of San Diego was nominal, aside from bringing the quartet to the Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla for evaluation. The returned astronauts also spoke to the press as a group on Jan. 21, with Fincke noting that a portable ultrasound machine on the ISS was “super-handy” for evaluating the issue in space.
A rare identification
But Fincke waited about another month to step forward revealing himself as the ill astronaut, which in itself is rare as astronauts are even shielded routinely from identification in medical studies due to privacy considerations. Fincke did not reveal his motivations for discussing (without too many details) his medical situation in a LinkedIn post, but said that he was grateful for the support from his crew and everyone else involved in the return.
“I was the astronaut who experienced the medical issue that led to our early return from the International Space Station. Now that the full range of terrestrial imaging and diagnostic evaluations—capabilities available only here on Earth—have been completed, I’m grateful to share that the results are very reassuring and that I’m firmly on the path to a complete recovery,” Fincke wrote in part.
“The decision to shorten the mission was deliberate and thoughtful—ensuring I could receive that comprehensive evaluation on the ground. It was the right call. Space and microgravity continue to teach us—sometimes in surprising ways. NASA made this decision with calm judgment and with people at the center. That says everything about the culture I am proud to serve in.”
Fincke specifically thanked SpaceX and the commercial crew program for their support as well, saying the quick return “demonstrated exactly why this capability matters. Crew Dragon provided a safe, reliable, and responsive path home when it was the right thing to do.”
A legacy in shuttle and commercial crew
Fincke was initially selected as an astronaut candidate in 1996 and flew on Soyuz/Expedition 9 in 2004, Soyuz/Expedition 18 in 2009, and shuttle/STS-134 in 2011. Fincke’s following contributions to the nascent commercial crew program cannot be overstated. He was astronaut office chief of the commercial crew branch between about 2014 and 2019, a period which included the award and implementation of the final commercial crew development contracts to SpaceX and Boeing.
“For over a decade, Fincke has been integral to NASA’s commercial crew program,” his NASA biography states. “He participated in the original Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts award. Following his extensive work with NASA’s commercial crew Program developing both the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, Fincke played a crucial role in Boeing’s Crew Flight Test (CFT) program.”
That role included, initially, a prime crew slot with CFT that Fincke accepted in January 2019. CFT was supposed to fly pretty quickly, but Starliner famously experienced many issues (including thruster problems) during two uncrewed missions: an initial effort in December 2019 that never reached the ISS but landed safely, and a forced retry in May 2022 (after numerous design changes) that did reach the ISS and come home again, despite several critical flaws.
Following the second uncrewed test, NASA changed the configuration of CFT to only have two astronauts, who ultimately were NASA’s Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore. Fincke was made backup on CFT and commander of Starliner-1, the first planned operational ISS mission of Starliner that for some time was expected to fly in 2025.
Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Josh Kutryk was also named mission specialist aboard Starliner-1, meaning Kutryk and Fincke trained together. (We are ignoring here many crew changes that happened on CFT and Starliner-1 prior to these final assignments, as years passed and several astronauts were switched off the Starliner track to SpaceX due to ongoing launch delays before CFT.)
CFT, Starliner-1 and SpaceX Crew-11
Fincke’s assignment to Starliner-1 changed in the wake of CFT’s notorious 2024-25 flight. Wilmore and Williams, both highly seasoned military test pilots and astronauts, were barely able to reach the ISS on June 6, 2024 due to five out of 28 thrusters initially failing to operate properly on Starliner’s reaction control system. Four of the recalcitrant thrusters were resurrected prior to arrival, after considerable space and ground effort. After the docking happened, NASA and Boeing spent months examining Starliner and ultimately brought the spacecraft home without crew in September 2025, which was (to say the least) not the plan.
Williams and Wilmore were shuffled on to the SpaceX Crew-9 mission, forcing a nearly last-minute change of that Crew Dragon’s assigned astronauts to remove two people from the manifest to make room for the Starliner astronauts. This allowed the Starliner astronauts to return home on March 18, 2025 – about nine months into what was supposed to be a two-week mission.
NASA released an independent fault investigation just last week concerning CFT, which you can read about here on SpaceQ, but the most notable finding was that CFT likely meets the criteria for either a Type A failure (the most serious type in human spaceflight) or a high visibility close call at NASA.
Looking ahead
NASA now plans yet another uncrewed test of Starliner at some undetermined point before authorizing more astronauts on board the spacecraft. Fincke was officially moved off of Starliner-1 in March 2025 to instead be the pilot of SpaceX Crew-11, which launched Aug. 1, 2025. Kutryk’s spaceflight status has not officially been discussed by CSA and NASA.
Fincke, who is 58 years old, may not be able to return to space both given his age (as the wait time for missions is several years) and the nature of the medical issue. That said, he has not announced a retirement and astronauts much older than he have flown – including, recently, NASA’s Don Pettit who celebrated his 70th anniversary in space in 2025.
The LinkedIn post by Fincke did not speculate on his own future, however, instead focusing on the agency’s moon-to-Mars mandate. “I believe—more strongly than ever—that our future lies outward: Back to the Moon, onward to Mars, throughout the solar system, and someday even to the stars. Per aspera ad astra.”