On Friday afternoon, NASA instructed five of the seven crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to move into the docked SpaceX Dragon “Freedom” to act as a lifeboat while a worsening air leak in the station’s transfer tunnel, known as the PrK, threatened to endanger the crew and the ISS’s systems.
The leak had been a long‑standing problem for the Russian segment of the station, with cracks appearing on and off for the past six years. The recent fall in pressure noticed after a cargo space‑craft docked prompted Roscosmos to attempt a more extensive repair, which the crew began on Friday.
Russian cosmonauts commander Sergey Kud‑Sverchkov and flight engineer Sergei Mikaev tried to access the crack with a saw, a method that NASA did not approve. As the repair progressed, the pressure loss worsened, leading Nasa mission control in Houston to order a “safe‑haven” procedure, sending the crew into the Dragon capsule, which is always attached to the ISS and can be quickly undocked if needed.
After the repair was paused, Nasa told the crew in Dragon to return to the station. Nasa spokeswoman Bethany Stevens said on X: “Given this development, Nasa has instructed the crew members inside the Dragon spacecraft to end the safe haven procedures and return to planned operations aboard the International Space Station.”
Russian news agency Tass noted that the crew and the ISS system were not threatened by the incident. The ISS, the largest human‑made object in space, has been continuously operated by a US‑Russian‑led consortium including Canada, Japan and 11 European nations since 1998.
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