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NASA ordered astronauts aboard the International Space Station to shelter in their spacecraft and prepare for potential evacuation on Friday, as a Russian crew attempted to fix a worsening leak of air on its portion of the orbital laboratory, the U.S. agency said.
The four astronauts of NASA’s Crew-12 mission at the station — two U.S. astronauts, a French astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut — got orders from mission control at 9:04 a.m. ET to enter their Crew Dragon spacecraft docked to the station and don their spacesuits in case the 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 of and potential fixes for small air leaks aboard the Russian 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.
More to come.
