NASA astronauts resume operations after air leak triggers evacuation alert

In an immediate evacuation, NASA instructed the astronauts' crew to return to the International Space Station on Friday.

NASA lifted the order for four crew members of its SpaceX Crew-12 mission aboard the ISS, who were ordered to temporarily shelter in the Dragon spacecraft amid ongoing air leaks on the floating space laboratory.

In a statement posted to X, NASA spokesperson Bethany Stevens said that "out of an abundance of caution," all four members of NASA's Crew-12 mission—NASA astronauts Jack Hathaway and Jessica Meir, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, and NASA astronaut Chris Williams—were told to shelter in the Crew Dragon spacecraft docked to the station while members of Russia's space agency Roscosmos attempted to fix the leaks.

According to Reuters, NASA and Roscosmos "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."

About 90 minutes later, after the mission started, Stevens said that Roscosmos had "paused" its structural repair efforts, and NASA instructed the crew members inside the Dragon spacecraft to "end the safe haven procedures and return to planned operations aboard the International Space Station."

The air leaks were located in the transfer tunnel of the Zvezda Service Module. Roscosmos has been dealing with cracks and air leaks in its station compartments for more than five years, with Nasa’s office of inspector general calling them “a top safety risk”.

In June, a chartered spaceflight for India, Poland and Hungary’s first astronauts in decades was postponed over leak concerns.