Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have been ordered by NASA to shelter in their spacecraft and prepare for a possible evacuation, reports "Reuters".
The reason is that a Russian crew is trying to fix a worsening air leak in their part of the orbital laboratory.
The four astronauts of NASA's Crew-12 mission to the station - two Americans, a Frenchman and a Russian - received orders from NASA's control center at 9:04 a.m. Eastern time on Monday to enter their Crew Dragon spacecraft, docked with the station, and put on spacesuits in case the air leak forced an emergency evacuation, a NASA official said.
NASA and the Russian space agency "Roscosmos" - the two main operators of the station - have been arguing for months about the cause and potential solutions to small air leaks aboard the Russian service module "Zvezda" - a key structure of the laboratory the size of a football field.
The air leak had been relatively minor in recent months, but on Monday it escalated from half a kilogram of air a day to two kilograms, said a senior NASA official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.