Five astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) were ordered to take shelter inside a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on Friday, June 5, following new concerns over an ongoing air leak in the Russian-controlled segment of the station.
The precautionary order has since been lifted, and officials maintain that the crew was never in immediate danger.
The Leak and the Repair Effort
The leak is located in a transfer tunnel between the Russian Zvezda module and a docking hatch. While structural cracks and minor leaks in this area have been a known issue for some time, a recent degradation prompted quick action.
- The Plan: Roscosmos scheduled an extensive repair operation for Friday morning.
- The Precaution: Due to the nature of the repairs, NASA directed five crew members to assume an “elevated safety posture” inside their spacecraft.
- The Pause: The shelter-in-place order was lifted later that morning after Roscosmos paused the structural repair efforts to gather more data and measurements. According to Russian state media, cosmonauts identified two potential leak sites; one was quickly sealed, while work on the second is ongoing.
Who Was Affected?
The five astronauts hunkered down inside the 13-foot-wide (4-meter) SpaceX Dragon capsule—the same vehicle that carried most of them to the station in February. The group included:
- SpaceX Crew-12 Members: Jessica Meir (NASA), Jack Hathaway (NASA), Sophie Adenot (ESA), and Andrey Fedyaev (Roscosmos).
- Soyuz Crew Member: Chris Williams (NASA), who arrived via a Russian spacecraft but sheltered with the Crew-12 team.
