An escalating air leak aboard the International Space Station (ISS) led five astronauts to seek shelter and prepare for possible evacuation for about two hours on Friday as Russia worked to address a crack on its section of the orbital lab, NASA reported.
The four Crew-12 mission astronauts — two American astronauts, a French astronaut, and a Russian cosmonaut — along with an additional U.S. astronaut, were directed by NASA mission control at 9:04 a.m. ET on Friday to enter their SpaceX-built Crew Dragon spacecraft docked to the station, according to NASA spokesperson Bethany Stevens.
After approximately two hours, NASA rescinded the order and allowed the astronauts to return to the station as both NASA and Russia assessed the air leak rate.
NASA and Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, the main operators of the station, have been in discussions for months regarding the cause and potential solutions for small air leaks within Russia’s Zvezda service module, a critical component of the ISS, which serves as a living and working space for astronauts in orbit.
Former NASA chief astronaut Chris Cassidy, who commanded Expedition 63 on the ISS in 2020, mentioned that the staff were first alerted to the leak during that time.
“Engineers on both sides of the ocean have been grappling with plans to seal the leak for the past five or six years, but it has proven to be a persistent issue,” Cassidy informed CBC News.
Roscosmos stated on Friday that its experts had identified two leaks on the ISS but reassured that there was no immediate danger to the crew.
NASA livestreams a view of the ISS from an external camera installed on the station’s Harmony module.
Preparations in Progress for Second Leak
The first leak was swiftly sealed, and efforts were underway to address the second leak, Roscosmos indicated, emphasizing that the spacecraft’s systems were not at risk.
While air leaks have been relatively minor in recent months, the rate escalated on Friday from one pound of air per day to two pounds, according to a senior NASA official who requested anonymity.
“The leak rate has doubled. So, if they were monitoring a situation that could afford them about a month of air before reaching alarm levels, now that period has been cut to 15 days,” Cassidy explained to CBC News.
The ISS currently accommodates seven astronauts from two missions, including the Crew-12 team — NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev — who arrived in February.
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