00:00Music
00:20Right now, 400 kilometers above Earth, astronauts are suiting up.
00:27Not for a spacewalk, not for a routine drill, for a possible evacuation.
00:34The International Space Station, humanity's most advanced laboratory in orbit,
00:40is facing a serious emergency tonight,
00:43and NASA has just ordered its crew to shelter inside their spacecraft and prepare to leave.
00:51Here is what we know.
00:53A worsening air leak has been detected inside Russia's Zvezda service module.
01:00This is not a new crack.
01:02NASA spokesperson Bethany Stevens confirmed tonight that these cracks have always been a concern,
01:09one that NASA watches very closely.
01:12But what changed today is the scale.
01:16For months, this leak has been described as relatively minor, around one pound of air per day,
01:24manageable, monitored, under control.
01:27Then, on Monday, it doubled.
01:30Two pounds of air per day are now escaping from a pressurized space station that has seven human beings living
01:38inside it.
01:39And at that rate, the calculation changes completely.
01:43At 9.04 in the morning eastern time, NASA Mission Control issued the order.
01:50The four astronauts of Crew 12 were told to enter their Crew Dragon spacecraft,
01:56docked to the station, and donned their spacesuits immediately.
02:00So who are these four people right now, sitting suited up, waiting for the call?
02:07NASA astronaut Jessica Mayer serving a spacecraft commander, Jack Hathaway the pilot,
02:15French ESA astronaut Sophie Adnot, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyeev both serving as mission specialists.
02:24A fifth astronaut, NASA's Chris Williams was also directed into the Crew Dragon as a precaution.
02:31Five people, one spacecraft, engines ready.
02:36Now, here is the bigger picture.
02:39The ISS is not just any laboratory.
02:43It is larger than a six-bedroom house.
02:46It has been continuously occupied since November 2000.
02:51Seven astronauts from Russia, the United States, and France are currently living and working inside it.
02:58It travels at five miles per second, completing a full orbit of Earth in 90 minutes.
03:04It is one of the greatest engineering achievements in human history.
03:09And right now, it has a crack that is getting worse by the hour.
03:15NASA and Roscosmos have been going back and forth over the cause of this leak and how to fix it.
03:21There has been no agreement, no permanent solution, just monitoring and hoping it stays minor.
03:28Tonight, it stopped being minor.
03:32A Russian crew is currently working to fix the leak from inside the Zvezda module.
03:38But with the air loss doubling and the evacuation order already given, the window to get this under control is
03:46narrowing fast.
03:47Seven astronauts, a cracking module, a spacecraft on standby.
03:53400 kilometers above us, the clock is ticking.
03:57A registered currency.
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