The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) ordered five astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to protect their spacecraft on Friday morning, June 5, 2026.
The evacuation orders came as Russian cosmonauts attempted to repair a worsening air leak in the Russian segment of the station.
At 9:04 a.m. ET the four-member SpaceX Crew-12 crew, consisting of NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, along with NASA astronaut Chris Williams, were told to board the docked Crew Dragon spacecraft and don their spacesuits for a possible escape from the station.
After about two hours, NASA revoked evacuation orders when it realized the leak rate was under control.
The leak was detected in the transfer tunnel of the Russian Zvezda service module, which is an important structural component of the orbital laboratory.
It’s been five years since NASA started worrying about cracks and air leaks. NASA’s inspector general calls them “a significant safety risk.” A senior NASA official confirmed that the leak rate increased from about 1 pound of air per day to 2 pounds.
The ISS maintains an atmosphere very similar to that of Earth at sea level, but not identical. The pressure is maintained at 14.7 pounds per square inch, with a composition of approximately 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen. Air leaks are the escape of these gases through a crack into the vacuum of space.
For now, NASA has taken the situation under control. Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev accessed the cracked areas with the help of saws. However, NASA officials disagreed with the chosen method, prompting the shelter-in-place order “out of an abundance of caution.”
However, if the gap increases in size beyond the station’s ability to compensate for the loss, pressure will be lost, oxygen levels will decrease, and astronauts will suffer hypoxia (lack of oxygen) and decompression sickness, as happens to divers when they ascend too quickly.
However, long before this proves fatal, NASA will evacuate the entire space station using the docked spacecraft, making the ISS uninhabitable if the damage cannot be repaired. Therefore, although death may not be a problem, lack of breathable air is the biggest threat.
