ISS air leak worsens, NASA orders astronauts into SpaceX escape capsule
NASA ordered the International Space Station crew into their docked SpaceX Dragon capsule on June 5 after a long-running air leak in Russia's Zvezda service module suddenly worsened. The leak rate climbed during recent Progress cargo operations, and Russian engineers paused a risky structural repair to gather more data. Station pressure stayed stable and the crew returned to normal duties.
NASA ordered ISS astronauts into their docked SpaceX Dragon capsule on June 5, 2026 and told them to prepare for a possible evacuation after a long-running air leak in Russia's Zvezda service module worsened. The leak, in a cracked PrK transfer tunnel that has lost small amounts of air since 2019, climbed to about two pounds per day during Progress 95 cargo operations, and engineers identified new suspected crack locations. Roscosmos prepared a more aggressive fix involving cutting a bracket, a step NASA warned could stress the surrounding structure, then paused the work to collect more data. Pressure stayed stable and the crew returned to normal operations. Sources: NASA via ScienceDaily, AeroTime.