Space Station repairs take place to address worsening air leaks

Sr Digital Curator

Astronauts on the International Space Station had been ordered Friday morning to prepare for a potential evacuation as a Russian crew worked to fix worsening air leaks at the football-field-sized facility.

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Astronauts were told to wait inside a docked SpaceX spacecraft with their space suits on as the fixes were being made in the event of an emergency evacuation, Reuters reported.

That shelter order was lifted later Friday morning as the Russian space agency “paused Friday’s structural repair efforts … as more measurements and data is assessed.”

It’s not yet clear when repair efforts will resume.

The cracks and air leaks have been an issue in Russia’s Zvezda service module transfer tunnel for about six years, CBS News reported, and there have been other attempts to fix them. Those leaks have worsened this week, the news outlet reported.

Those who sought shelter included all four crew members of the SpaceX Crew-12 mission who flew to the orbiting laboratory aboard the Dragon spacecraft, which includes NASA’s Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. NASA’s Chris Williams, who arrived at the ISS aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, will also shelter with the Crew-12 astronauts.

Cosmonauts discovered two potential air leaks during an inspection, according to Russian state media. The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, said the situation does not pose a threat to the safety of the crew.

“While pressurizing the Zvezda module’s transfer chamber (TBC) to the International Space Station’s pressure, specialists from the ISS Russian Segment’s main operations team detected a leak in the TBC,” a Rosmosmos statement reads, according to state media.

The first leak was quickly sealed, Russia’s Zvezda media outlet reports, while work on another problem area continues.

All five astronauts who sought shelter hunkered down inside the same 13-foot-wide SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule that carried the Crew-12 group to the station in February.

Earlier Friday, NASA Press Secretary Bethany Stevens wrote on social media about the order to astronauts.

“Out of an abundance of caution, NASA has directed all four of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-12 members and NASA astronaut Chris Williams to assume an elevated safety posture in the Dragon spacecraft while the repair is underway,” Stevens wrote.

“The cracks have always been a concern that NASA watches very closely,” Stevens wrote. “NASA and Roscosmos have been working to determine the root cause of the cracks, and Roscosmos manages the issue through operational mitigation measures and periodic partial-repair efforts.
Following new leaks, Roscosmos has elected to proceed with a more extensive repair operation.”

The International Space Station has been in orbit since 2005.