The four astronauts on the Artemis 2 mission currently hurtling through space have had a largely uneventful journey so far. Few in-flight problems disturb their peace of mind.
Except for the toilet.
The Artemis 2 crew’s 16.5-foot-wide (5-meter-wide) Orion capsule experienced issues related to waste management toward the end of Day 3 early Saturday morning.
“Taking waste out of the toilet is a problem,” Artemis 2 flight director Judd Freeling told reporters Saturday morning. “So it looks to me like there might be some frozen urine in the exhaust pipe.”
The astronauts – NASA’s Reed Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen – were still asleep in the morning nearly 200,000 miles (nearly 320,000 kilometers) from Earth as mission controllers continued to troubleshoot the problem. By 3:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, early on Day 4 of the flight, mission controllers had a plan of attack: heating the cryoline by rotating the capsule to expose the frozen urine to sunlight. This unclogs the pipes, allowing the waste management system to drain urine out of the capsule, potentially clearing the system and allowing astronauts to start using the toilet again.
Shortly after trying to pass some urine, Mission Control said the toilet was “usable” but “for fecal use only.”
Koch also showed the process of expelling urine from the capsule in footage early in the mission. As urine flies past Orion’s windows, it drips like glowing gems in a vacuum.
The crew also reported a burning smell coming from the bathroom, though mission controllers noted that this was likely just the gasket material surrounding the door.
But this isn’t the first time the crew has had bathroom issues.
Shortly after launching Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the crew realized the toilet’s pump wasn’t working. Pumps are important and serve many purposes, including helping to remove waste from the body. In space, there is no gravity to assist with this expulsion.
The problem had a relatively simple solution: the crew simply didn’t put in enough water to prime the pump. Once completed, the system started functioning as expected.
The astronauts celebrated the small victory in a virtual interview with news outlets on Thursday.
“I’m proud to call myself a space plumber,” Koch said. “We were all relieved when it turned out everything was fine. We did initially think there might be something blocking the motor.
“Luckily, we all run the system,” she said.
The Artemis 2 astronauts’ toilet separates and releases urine into space and stores feces for disposal upon return to Earth. Crews were trained on how to use the system using this model at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. – Canadian Space Agency)
“The most important device”
For astronauts who value material comfort, the onboard toilet may be the most precious space facility.
“I would say this is probably the most important piece of equipment on the ship,” Koch added in a communication from Orion on Thursday.
When Orion’s toilet malfunctioned, astronauts had to resort to technology used by deep space explorers in the mid-20th century.
During the Apollo era, astronauts had no toilets. They rely entirely on bags to relieve themselves.
And the process isn’t always error-free. During the 1969 Apollo 10 mission, in which Thomas Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan orbited the moon, Stafford reported to mission control on mission day 6 that a piece of waste was floating inside the module, according to once-secret government documents.
“Give me a napkin, come on,” Stafford was recorded saying minutes before Cernan discovered more: “This is another damn poop.”
Astronauts are known to hate the bagging method.
An official NASA report in 2007 later revealed that “the poop bag system had limited functionality and was described by the crew as ‘disgusting'”. “These bags provide no odor control in the small capsules and the odor is noticeable.”
The Orion crew is currently relying on a similar system, formally known as the Collapsible Emergency Urinal, or CCU. Astronaut Don Pettit followed the mission from home, sharing a photo on his social media.
Orion’s Legacy
The Apollo 10 capsule wasn’t the only one to be plagued by toilet problems. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule completed its first astronaut mission in 2020 and has flown more than a dozen times since then, but it has also experienced some problems with its health system.
For example, during a Crew Dragon flight in 2021, SpaceX discovered that a tube used to conduct urine into a storage tank became debonded, causing water to leak beneath the capsule floor. This forces astronauts to rely on spare undergarments – essentially adult diapers.
Current NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, a billionaire technology entrepreneur, also commissioned Crew Dragon for a three-day flight in 2022 called Inspiration4. During a space flight, he had to deal with the problem of an onboard toilet. However, Isaacman told CNN at the time that the issue did not involve wayward waste floating around the cabin.
Decades of toilet development have informed the systems on board the Orion spacecraft that are being used by the Artemis 2 astronauts. NASA installed a similar system on the International Space Station, just a few hundred miles above Earth, to help review the technology.
NASA astronaut Christina Koch reads on a tablet inside the Orion crew module on Friday, while astronaut Jeremy Hanson (center right) looks out of an Orion window. – NASA
Collins Aerospace signed a contract worth approximately $30 million in 2015 to design and retrofit the technology, known as the Universal Waste Management System (UWMS), for Orion.
The system also builds on decades of toilet technology from the space shuttle program. In both systems, urine is discharged outside the capsule, while solid waste is compacted and returned home with the crew.
When it works, space toilets can work to their advantage.
“A friend of mine even said he would prefer a toilet in space to a toilet on Earth,” former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino told CNN.
Massimino, however, isn’t so sure. “I really miss toilets on Earth because it’s very relevant to space and you have to be careful and respectful of your friends so you don’t leave a mess,” he said. “And be sure to clean up after yourself because you don’t want people to get sick.”
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