The seven astronauts on the International Space Station got a scare Friday morning when air leaks worsened in a Russian module.
At about 9 a.m. Eastern time, NASA said the astronauts who had traveled to the I.S.S. in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule — two Americans, one Russian, one French — had been told to seek “safe haven” in the spacecraft, which was docked at the space station.
Another NASA astronaut who had arrived in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft joined them in the Crew Dragon, while two other astronauts from Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, prepared to make repairs.
“Following new leaks, Roscosmos has elected to proceed with a more extensive repair operation on Friday, June 5,” Bethany Stevens, the NASA press secretary, posted on social media.
The other astronauts were moved to the Crew Dragon “out of an abundance of caution,” she said.
About an hour and a half later, the immediate emergency was declared over. “Our counterparts in Roscosmos are standing down from any activities,” said Joseph Zakrzewski, a spokesman at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“They are doing measurements only, so the crew aboard Dragon will be exiting the safe haven posture,” he added.
A tunnel in the Russian Zvezda module has suffered persistent leaking of air for years, raising concerns that microscopic cracks in the structure could lead to a catastrophic failure and decompression. As a precaution, the hatch to the tunnel was kept closed when not in use.
Repeated efforts to track down and repair the leaks appeared to have finally succeeded last year, but the leaks resumed last month.
Kenneth Chang, a science reporter at The Times, covers NASA and the solar system, and research closer to Earth.
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