Astronauts told to shelter on spacecraft after air leaks are found on ISS

Published June 5, 2026 3:56pm Updated June 5, 2026 9:11pm

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have resumed their normal duties after air leaks were discovered.

The spacefarers who had travelled to the cosmic outpost in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule were told to seek ‘safe haven’ at around 2pm.

Two leaks had been discovered inside the Russian wing of the ISS, the Zvezda, during the pressurisation of the module’s transfer chamber.

The five astronauts – two Americans, one Russian and one French – sheltered while two Russian cosmonauts made repairs.

Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, said that one of the two leaks has been sealed, according to the state-owned Tass news agency

The second potential leak, which does ‘not pose a threat’ to the crew, is located on the conical portion of the transfer chamber.

Archive picture of the International Space Station photographed by Expedition 56 crew members from a Soyuz spacecraft after undocking, November 2018. (Picture: ISS/NASA/SWNS) — Five out of seven cosmonauts in the Russian section of the ISS have been told to shelter inside the docked SpaceX Crew Dragon ‘Freedom’ spacecraft (Picture: ISS/NASA/SWNS)

The team told to shelter Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, Sophie Adenot, Andrey Fedyaev and Chris Williams.

They threw on their spacesuits so they were ready to undock and return to Earth at a moment’s notice from the SpaceX Crew Dragon ‘Freedom’ capsule.

Sergey Kud‑Sverchkov and Sergey Mikayev remained to patch the holes.

Joseph Zakrzewski, a spokesman at the Nasa Johnson Space Center in Houston, declared the emergency over at about 4pm.

She said that Russian space officials are standing down and ‘are doing measurements only, so the crew aboard Dragon will be exiting the safe haven posture’.

The astronauts can now get back to work, Zakrzewski added.

Roscosmos has paused Friday’s structural repair efforts inside the Zvezda service module transfer tunnel, known as PrK, as more measurements and data is assessed. Given this development, NASA has instructed the crew members inside the Dragon spacecraft to end the safe haven…
— Bethany Stevens (@NASASpox) June 5, 2026

The tunnel in the Russian Zvezda module has suffered air leaks since 2018, releasing 3.7 pounds of atmosphere a day, Nasa said in 2024.

Some may have been caused by micrometeoroids, a tiny fleck of space rock, or the endless space junk hurtling above your head.

FILE PHOTO: NASA???s Crew-12 members, Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, NASA astronauts Jack Hathaway, Jessica Meir, and ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot walk out of the Operations & Checkout Building at the Kennedy Space Center before transport to Launch Complex 40, ahead of their launch to the International Space Station, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., February 13, 2026. REUTERS/Steve Nesius/File Photo — Crew-12 members, Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, NASA astronauts Jack Hathaway, Jessica Meir, and ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot, before launching to the ISS (Picture: Reuters)

Most leaks were plugged up last year but Russian space officials noticed last month a fresh pressure drop in the tunnel, prompting the repair today.

While a leak might not sound like much, in the abyss of space, even a microscopic crack can lead to a catastrophic failure.

Decompression could happen, when everything inside the chamber is violently spat out into space.

What is the International Space Station?

An astronaut has shown off an incredible overhead kick in space ahead of the World Cup. NASA's Jessica Meir pulled off the acrobatic move in microgravity as she hosted a science lesson from the International Space Station (ISS) this week for students. The 'Learn With NASA' lesson saw Meir explaining how "engineers carefully design soccer balls so they fly smoothly whether they?re being kicked in your backyard or in the World Cup." In the clip, titled 'science soccer', she demonstrated how differently shaped balls spin, and then showed off an impressive bicycle kick. However, one British online observer was not completely impressed with the American term for football. John Purchase commented: "Nearly good until you said soccer." Photo released 21/05/2026 — Involves a lot of floating (Picture: Learn With NASA/SWNS)

The International Space Station is humanity’s high-tech home in the sky.

Over the last nearly 30 years, 280 people from 26 countries have worked, floated, struggled to use the toilet, sang David Bowie and gazed back at Earth.

The space station is up there mainly so people can research, well, space, as well as what being far away from Earth and the comforts of gravity does to the human body – and other Earhtly things.

Humanity’s cosmic cradle will likely come to an end in 2030, after findings from the US, Japan, Europe, Canada and Russia run dry.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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