WASHINGTON: Astronauts aboard the Worldwide House Station had been ordered by NASA to shelter of their spacecraft and put together for potential evacuation on Friday (Jun 5) as a Russian crew makes an attempt to repair a worsening leak of air on its portion of the orbital laboratory, NASA stated.
The 4 astronauts of NASA’s Crew-12 mission on the station – two US astronauts, a French astronaut and Russian cosmonaut – received orders from NASA mission management at 9.04am ET Monday (9.04pm, Singapore time) to enter their Crew Dragon spacecraft docked to the station and don their spacesuits in case the air leak warrants an emergency evacuation, a NASA official stated.
NASA and Russia’s area company Roscosmos, the station’s two main operators, have debated for months over the trigger and potential fixes of small air leaks aboard Russia’s Zvezda service module, a key construction of the soccer field-sized laboratory.
The air leaks have been comparatively minor in latest months however escalated on Monday from a pound of air per day to 2 kilos, in line with a senior NASA official who requested to not be named.
