Nasa tells astronauts to return to International Space Station as air leak repair paused – live

A fifth American astronaut, Chris Williams, is also sheltering and preparing for potential evacuation alongside the four members of Nasa’s SpaceX Crew-12, a Nasa spokesperson said Friday.

Chris Williams has been at the International Space Station for 190 days, alongside Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Mikayev, according to a live ISS tracker.

The air leaks that prompted Nasa to order its crew to prepare for a possible evacuation have “been a concern” for some time, a Nasa spokesperson said, with the Russian space program electing to proceed with more extensive repairs on Friday in response to new leaks.

“The Zvezda service module transfer tunnel, known as PrK, has suffered from cracks and leaks for some time, and has been mitigated by Roscosmos as much as possible to date,” Bethany Stevens, a spokesperson for Nasa, posted on X.

She continued: “The cracks have always been a concern that Nasa watches very closely. 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 on Friday, June 5.”

Nasa issued the order “out of an abundance of caution”, Stevens said.

The astronauts ordered by NASA to prepare for a possible evacuation on Friday are part of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission.

American astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, French astronaut Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency and Russian Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev make up the 12th crew rotation with SpaceX for NASA’s commercial crew program.

They have been at the orbiting International Space Station laboratory since February, conducting scientific investigations and technology demonstrations to help prepare humans for future exploration missions to the Moon and Mars.

NASA has ordered its astronauts aboard the International Space Station to shelter in their spacecraft and prepare for potential evacuation on Friday over a worsening leak of air in the Russian portion of the orbital laboratory, Reuters reports.

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