Astronauts told to return to ISS after attempt to repair air leak

Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) had a bit of a scare this week - but don't worry, they're all okay.

The ISS is a research station orbiting the earth where astronauts stay and carry out science experiments.

But on Friday, five of them were told to shelter in a docked spacecraft due to an air leak, while the remaining two tried to fix it.

The whole team were told to prepare for evacuation if it continued to get worse.

The ISS has never needed to be evacuated in its 26-year history.

But thankfully, they didn't need to - Nasa has now told the astronauts who had to shelter to return to the ISS while more investigations take place.

The leak happened because of cracks that have been causing some issues for about six years.

They're in a transfer tunnel called PrK, which leads to a section of the Russian segment of the station called the Zvezda service module.

A little bit of air leaking out is fine, but the team started noticing that more air than usual was escaping after a Russian cargo ship docked last month.

So the astronauts decided to carry out a more complicated repair, instead of patching it up as usual.

Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, Sophie Adenot and Andrey Fedyaev, who arrived on the ISS in February, were told to shelter on the docked SpaceX shuttle Dragon "Freedom" on Friday afternoon, along with another astronaut, Chris Williams.

The Dragon effectively functions as a lifeboat - attached to the station but ready to detach the moment the order is given.

It was station commander Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and flight engineer Sergei Mikaev who attempted to fix the problem.

However, Nasa wasn't in agreement with the way they were trying to do it, so the repairs were paused.

Nasa decided that the ship was safe enough to stay on while it carries out further investigations to see how it can be more permanently fixed.

Spokeswoman Bethany Stevens said: "Given this development, Nasa has instructed the crew members inside the Dragon spacecraft to end the safe haven procedures and return to planned operations aboard the International Space Station."