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NASA orders ISS astronauts to prepare for evacuation

NASA ordered astronauts aboard the International Space Station to shelter in their spacecraft and prepare for a possible evacuation on Friday after an air leak on the Russian side of the station worsened.

NASA and Roscosmos have been trying for months to identify the source of the leak in the Zvezda module and make a more permanent repair.

The incident matters because the station is a shared international outpost, and a failure to control the leak could affect crew safety and the future of the orbiting laboratory.

  • The ISS has been continuously inhabited since November 2000.
  • Russian modules have been essential to the station's propulsion and early life-support systems.
  • Microgravity lets researchers study how fluids, bones, and plants behave without Earth's pull.
NASA orders ISS astronauts to prepare for evacuation | Implica