NASA ordered five astronauts aboard the International Space Station to shelter in a docked SpaceX Crew Dragon for about two hours on Friday after an ISS air leak worsened.
NASA mission control issued the safe-haven order at 9:04 a.m. ET, or 6:04 p.m. PKT, while Russia’s Roscosmos worked on a crack in the Zvezda service module, NASA spokesperson Bethany Stevens said.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration later cleared the astronauts to return after Roscosmos paused the repair work. Stevens said NASA looked forward to working with Roscosmos on a collaborative approach to the leaks.
Roscosmos said its experts had detected two leaks on the station. The Russian space agency said one leak was quickly sealed and that there was no immediate threat to the crew or spacecraft systems.
The leak rate rose on Friday from about 1 pound of air per day to 2 pounds per day, a senior NASA official said. NASA and Roscosmos have debated the cause and repair approach for leaks in the Russian segment for months.
The station is home to seven astronauts from two missions. The Crew-12 team includes NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.
Another crew includes NASA astronaut Christopher Williams and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev. The two cosmonauts did not follow evacuation procedures during the preparation of repair work.
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Safe-haven orders remain rare on the International Space Station. Astronauts have never evacuated the orbital laboratory in its 27-year history, though debris threats and changes in leaks have triggered shelter procedures before.
A bill before the U.S. Congress would extend the station’s planned life until 2032. The legislation has the backing of Senators Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell, who lead the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
