NASA Orders ISS Crew to Prepare for Possible Evacuation

NASA on Friday ordered the five astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to move to their spacecraft and prepare for a possible evacuation after an air leak worsened in the Russian Zvezda service module, one of the station's key components.

Four members of the Crew-12 mission and one other US astronaut were instructed to board the Crew Dragon and don spacesuits in case the situation deteriorated further. Roughly two hours later, NASA lifted the precaution and allowed the crew to return to normal operations.

NASA and Russia's Roscosmos space agency have been discussing the cause of, and potential fix for, repeated air leaks in the Zvezda module for several months. A NASA official said the leak rate increased from around one to two pounds of air per day on Friday. Metric equivalents were not immediately available.

Russian cosmonauts are attempting to locate the source of the damage and identify the crack responsible for the leak. Safety precautions of this kind are rare aboard the ISS, which has never required evacuation in 27 years of operation.

(reuters, bak)