NASA astronauts aboard International Space Station ordered to shelter in Dragon spacecraft amid worsening air leaks
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station were ordered to temporarily shelter in place Friday as air leaks at the floating space laboratory worsened.
Inside A statement sent to XNASA spokeswoman Bethany Stevens said that “out of an abundance of caution,” all four members of NASA’s Crew-12 mission (NASA astronauts Jack Hathaway and Jessica Meir, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev) and NASA astronaut Chris Williams were told members of the Russian space agency to take shelter aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft docked with the station. Roscosmos tried to fix the leak.
About 90 minutes later, Stevens said Roscosmos was “pausing” structural repair efforts, and NASA instructed crew members on the Dragon spacecraft to “terminate safe haven procedures and return to planned operations aboard the International Space Station.”
According to Reuters, NASA and Roscosmos “have been arguing for months over the cause and possible solutions for small air leaks in Russia’s Zvezda service module, a key structure of the football field-sized laboratory.”
The air leaks “were relatively small in recent months, but increased from half a kilo of air a day to two kilos a day on Monday,” Reuters reported, citing an unnamed NASA official.
“Cracks have always been a concern that NASA monitors closely,” Stevens said in his initial statement. “NASA and Roscosmos are working to determine the root cause of the cracks, and Roscosmos is managing the problem through operational mitigation measures and periodic partial repair work.”
Following the new leaks, Stevens said on Friday that Roscosmos “has been selected to proceed with a more extensive repair operation,” prompting NASA to shelter astronauts aboard the Dragon spacecraft.
“We look forward to working with Roscosmos on a collaborative approach to address the leaks,” the NASA spokesperson added.
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