No emergency at International Space Station, crew ‘healthy and safe’
- An emergency alert sounded during an ISS livestream
- The warning was part of an on-ground training
- Crew aboard Dragon spacecraft is safe and healthy, officials say
FILE – This undated photo provided by Roscosmos shows the International Space Station.
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(NewsNation) — There is no emergency situation at the International Space Station, despite an alert that sounded during livestream Wednesday, officials say.
The alert went off during a NASA livestream warning of a crew member with decompression sickness. The notification was an error, having misrouted from a training scenario, the International Space Station clarified Wednesday.
The audio alert aired at 5:28 p.m. CDT over a livestream from a simulation channel on the ground and was inadvertently sounded on the livestream, the station said, assuring the public it wasn’t linked to a real emergency.
“The International Space Station crew members were in their sleep period at the time,” the space station wrote on X Wednesday. “All remain healthy and safe, and tomorrow’s spacewalk will start at 8 a.m. EDT as planned.”
SpaceX shared the post, adding, “This was only a test. The crew training in Hawthorne is safe and healthy as is the Dragon spacecraft docked to the space station.”
NASA canceled Thursday morning’s spacewalk however, citing an unrelated “spacesuit discomfort issue.”
Decompression sickness is a potentially life-threatening condition that develops when dissolved gases — oftentimes nitrogen — form bubbles in the bloodstream and tissues, according to the National Institutes of Health.
