NASA reverses evacuation alert order for astronauts aboard space station

WASHINGTON, June 5 (Reuters) - A worsening air leak aboard the International Space Station prompted five astronauts to take shelter and prepare for evacuation for roughly two hours on Friday as Russia attempted to fix a crack on its portion of the orbital laboratory, NASA said.

 

The four astronauts of NASA’s Crew‑12 mission ​aboard the station — two Americans, a French astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut — along with another U.S. astronaut were ordered ​by NASA mission control at 9:04 a.m. ET (1304 GMT) on Friday to enter their SpaceX‑built Crew Dragon ⁠spacecraft docked to the station, NASA spokesperson Bethany Stevens said.

 

NASA reversed that order roughly two hours later and told the astronauts ​they could return to the station as the agency and its Russian counterparts examined the rate of leaking air.

 

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 aboard Russia's Zvezda service module, a key structure of the ISS, a football field-size orbital laboratory where astronauts live and work in space.

 

Roscosmos said on Friday that ​its experts had detected two leaks aboard the ISS but that there was no immediate threat to the crew. The first leak ​was quickly sealed, and preparations were underway to seal the second one, Roscosmos said, adding that there was no threat to the spacecraft's systems.

 

The ‌air ⁠leaks have been relatively minor in recent months but escalated on Friday from a pound of air per day to two pounds, according to a senior NASA official who asked not to be named.

 

The ISS is currently home to seven astronauts from two missions, including the Crew‑12 team — NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev — ​who arrived in February.

 

The other crew ​of one U.S. astronaut, ⁠Christopher Williams, and two cosmonauts, Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev, arrived in November.

 

Kud-Sverchkov and Mikayev, who did not execute evacuation procedures, were planning to use a saw to break into an area where they ​believe they can access the crack leaking air, the NASA official said. NASA officials disagreed ​with this method, the ⁠NASA official said, prompting mission control in Houston to order safe-haven procedures.

 

Stevens said NASA reversed the safe-haven order and told astronauts they could return the space station once Roscosmos paused its efforts to repair the crack. "We look forward to working with Roscosmos on a collaborative ⁠approach to ​address the leaks," she said.

 

Safe-haven orders are rare on the International Space ​Station, though pieces of space debris that risk colliding with the ISS and smaller changes in air leak rates have triggered the process in recent years. Astronauts ​have never had to evacuate the ISS in its 27 year history.