A decision is yet to be made about how exactly the three crew members will be brought back to Earth.
Russia’s space agency says it is considering sending an empty spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) to bring home three crew members ahead of schedule, after their Soyuz capsule started leaking.
The leak started as two cosmonauts were preparing for a routine spacewalk.
Roscosmos and Nasa said it was unclear how the external radiator on the spacecraft sustained a tiny puncture.
The vehicle – known as MS-22 – flew Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergey Prokopyev, as well as Nasa astronaut Frank Rubio, to the station in September.
But it began spraying coolant into space earlier this month, with Nasa TV capturing dramatic images of white particles streaming out of the capsule like snowflakes.