Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) were ordered by NASA to shelter inside their spacecraft and prepare for a possible evacuation as a Russian crew attempted to fix a worsening air leak on its portion of the orbital laboratory, news agency Reuters reported.
The four astronauts of NASA’s Crew-12 mission, NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, were instructed by NASA mission control at 9:04 a.m. ET Monday to enter their docked Crew Dragon spacecraft and put on their spacesuits in case the leak required an emergency evacuation, a NASA official said.
NASA spokesperson Bethany Stevens later said the agency had instructed astronauts “to end safe haven procedures” and return to planned operations aboard the ISS after Roscosmos paused its structural repair efforts.
Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos said experts had detected two oxygen leaks aboard the ISS, but there was no immediate threat to the crew, according to Interfax news agency. The first leak was quickly sealed, while preparations were underway to seal the second one.
The issue involves Russia’s Zvezda service module, one of the key structures of the football field-sized ISS jointly operated by NASA and Russia’s space agency Roscosmos. The two agencies have reportedly debated for months over the cause of recurring small air leaks and possible fixes.
“The cracks have always been a concern that NASA watches very closely,” Stevens said in a post on X.
According to a senior NASA official who spoke on condition of anonymity, the leak escalated on Monday from a pound of air loss per day to two pounds.
NASA’s Crew-12 mission is the 12th crew rotation mission of SpaceX’s human space transportation system. The ISS is currently home to seven astronauts from the United States, Russia and France.
NASA describes the ISS as “a microgravity laboratory for researching new technologies and breakthroughs not possible on Earth”. The station, operated by five space agencies from 15 countries, has been continuously occupied since November 2000.
(With inputs from Reuters)
