CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — There was a bit of potty drawback on NASA’s Artemis 2 moon ship.
Inside hours of launching 4 astronauts on NASA’s Artemis 2 mission across the moon, its crew reported a glitch in what could have been probably the most anticipated new creature consolation of their Orion spacecraft: their house rest room.
Artemis 2 mission specialist Christina Koch famous a problem beginning up a part of the Orion capsule’s toilet — which NASA calls the Universal Waste Management System — that deals with urine collection.
“The toilet fan is reported to be jammed,” NASA spokesperson Gary Jordan said during live mission commentary. “Now the ground teams are coming up with instructions on how to get into the fan and clear that area to revive the toilet for the mission.”
Norm Knight, NASA’s director of flight operations, told reporters here at the Kennedy Space Center that the malfunction was due to a controller issue on the toilet. But NASA confirmed astronauts could still use the space commode to poop, just not urinate, though engineers were working to restore it to full service.
“In the meantime they’re getting their contingency — their backup waste management capabilities specifically for urine,” Jordan said. “The fecal collection of the toilet, that specific capability, can still be used with the waste management system aboard Orion.”
A few hours after Koch reported the toilet issue to Mission Control, flight controllers walked her through a series of steps to try and fix it.
“Houston, Integrity, good checkout,” Koch said after trying the fix.
Then, some relieving news.
“Happy to report that toilet is go for use,” Mission Control’s Capcom Amy Dill radioed Koch. “We do recommend letting the system get to operating speed before donating fluid, and then letting it run a little bit after donation.”
“We are cheers all around, and we will do that,” Koch replied.
It does sound like at least one crewmember used a contingency bag before the fix. Koch reported that one CCU, or Collapsible Contingency Urinal, was full and needed to be emptied overboard. Dill radioed up instructions on the best time for that dump, and all was well.
That may be a relief for the Artemis 2 astronauts, in more ways than one. NASA’s Apollo astronauts did not have the luxury of a toilet when they flew to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s. They peed and pooped in plastic bags, then stowed the solid waste and vented urine overboard into space.
The toilet aboard Orion is a smaller, more compact version of the bathrooms on the International Space Station. It’s built into the floor of the Orion capsule and allows Artemis 2 astronauts some privacy while taking care of business. While the Orion spacecraft is larger than NASA’s Apollo capsules, it’s still cramped — the interior has been compared to that of two SUVs.
“The one place that we can go on our mission where we can feel like we’re alone for a moment,” Artemis 2 mission specialist Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency said of the toilet in a video overview.
The bathroom is technically referred to as the “hygiene bay” and has about as a lot room as the toilet on a passenger jet, according to Lockheed Martin, which constructed the Orion spacecraft for NASA. It is a part of Orion’s techniques to assist an astronaut crew — NASA’s uncrewed Artemis 1 take a look at flight in 2022 did not carry one — however there are backup techniques aboard, like those Apollo-era bags, in the event that they’re wanted.
The Artemis 2 astronauts use foot restraints to assist keep in place whereas utilizing the bathroom, which makes use of airflow to attract stable waste away from the physique and into a set machine. For urine, every astronaut has his or her personal private funnel to make use of, with a fan that pulls the urine right into a tank.
“That is completely an essential element on this ship,” Blaine Brown, Lockheed Martin’s director of Orion spacecraft mechanical techniques, told Space.com in an interview. “You’ll be able to name it a luxurious. Some name it a necessity.”
NASA’s Artemis 2 mission is a historic take a look at flight to ship astronauts on a 10-day journey across the moon. It is the primary crewed flight of the Orion spacecraft and the Area Launch System rocket that launched them on their manner.
The mission is the vanguard of NASA’s Artemis program, which goals to land astronauts on the moon by 2028 and start a everlasting moon base by 2032.
Editor’s observe: This story was up to date at 12:15 a.m. EDT on April 2 to mirror the profitable restore of the bathroom on Artemis 2’s Orion spacecraft.
