Command over the International Space Station (ISS) has changed hands. In a ceremony onboard the station on Monday, NASA astronaut Mike Fincke relinquished the charge of the ISS’s Expedition 74 over to Russian cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov.
Fincke thanked his fellow crew members on the ISS as he handed over command to Kud-Sverchkov, adding that it had been great to serve alongside the Russian cosmonaut before thanking each of the other Expedition 74 crew individually.
“It’s bittersweet,” Fincke said during the live-streamed ceremony, which was broadcast from the ISS. Fincke then handed a key to the ISS to Kud-Sverchkov.
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“Despite all the changes and all the difficulties, we are going to do our job onboard ISS, performing all the scientific tasks, maintenance tasks here, whatever happens,” Kud-Sverchkov said before making his first command: a group hug.
The exchange came after NASA ordered the evacuation of four astronauts who are currently on the ISS because one of them fell sick; NASA has described the unidentified crew member as “stable” but hasn’t released any further details about their identity or condition. The departing quartet make up Crew-11: Fincke, fellow NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, Japan’s Kimiya Yui and cosmonaut Oleg Platonov.
Despite the fact that one of them prompted such an unprecedented move, all seven members of Expedition 74 appeared and spoke during the broadcast on Monday.
Their departure will reduce the station’s occupants to just three—NASA’s Chris Williams and cosmonauts Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, who together make up the Soyuz MS-28 crew.
The departing astronauts are expected to undock from the station on Wednesday before they splash down off the coast of California sometime in the early hours on Thursday morning local time.
NASA hasn’t released any details about what exactly happened onboard the station to prompt the evacuation, but the situation is a first: the agency has never brought a crew home from the ISS ahead of schedule because of a medical problem before. Officials haven’t revealed which crew member has been affected or what issue they have encountered.
Monday’s command handover was also atypical: Fincke’s early departure means the station command falls to the next highest-ranking crew member onboard, who is Kud-Sverchkov. Before the evacuation was ordered, Fincke had expected to transfer leadership of the station to the incoming Crew-12 commander, Jessica Meir—who, along with the three other members of Crew-12, is slated to arrive at the ISS in February.