Astronauts on board the International Space Station were ordered by NASA to shelter in their spacecraft and prepare for potential evacuation as a Russian crew attempts to fix a worsening leak of air on its portion of the orbital laboratory, NASA said.
The four astronauts of NASA’s Crew-12 mission on the station – two US astronauts, a French astronaut and Russian cosmonaut – got orders from NASA mission control to enter their Crew Dragon spacecraft docked to the station and don their spacesuits in case the air leak warrants an emergency evacuation, a NASA official said.
NASA and Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, the station’s two primary operators, have debated for months over the cause and potential fixes of small air leaks on board Russia’s Zvezda service module, a key structure of the football field-sized laboratory.
The air leaks have been relatively minor in recent months but escalated on Monday from a pound of air per day to two pounds, according to a senior NASA official who asked not to be named.