The saga of the International Space Station air leak took a worrying turn Friday

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Five astronauts took shelter in a SpaceX capsule Friday morning as two Russian cosmonauts attempted repairs on a persistent air leak aboard the International Space Station. NASA ordered US astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, French astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev into the Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft around 9 am EST while the repair work proceeded on the Russian segment. The leak, which has plagued the station for months, required the precautionary evacuation as a safety measure during the ongoing maintenance. The incident underscores the challenges of managing a decades-old orbital laboratory with aging components from multiple space agencies.