Five astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) sheltered inside a docked SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule for nearly two hours on Friday as an air leak in the Zvezda module’s transfer tunnel prompted Russian crewmates to attempt an invasive bracket-cutting repair on the station’s highest-rated structural risk. The crew returned to their stations after Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, stepped back from the bracket cut, sealing one of two freshly discovered leak sites with chemical sealant and leaving the second pending, ten weeks after the same tunnel had been declared free of active leaks.
The leak rate in the PrK (a vestibule connecting the aft docking port of the Zvezda service module to a cargo docking port) had roughly doubled in the days before Friday, climbing from about one pound (0.45 kg) of air per day to two pounds (0.9 kg), a senior NASA official told Reuters. Hairline cracks in the PrK were first noticed in 2019; Friday was the first time those cracks had pushed Roscosmos to plan a structural cut.
Inside Dragon Freedom
The Two-Hour Sequence
At 9:03 AM EDT on June 5, NASA mission control directed all four members of SpaceX Crew-12 and NASA astronaut Chris Williams to
