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\n\t\t\t\tThe first-ever deep-space toilet was out of commission for the first six hours of the flight, but troubleshooting was a success \u2014 to the relief of the crew.\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Artemis 2 spacecraft\u2019s toilet features a urine hose, pictured here being taken out of its cradled position in this ground demonstration. Air flows through the hose and pulls urine into the ship\u2019s waste management system. Credit: NASA\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Before wrapping up their first flight day, the crew of Artemis 2 pulled off another feat of NASA in-flight troubleshooting: fixing their broken toilet.<\/p>\n
It might not rank as NASA\u2019s no. 1 triumph, or even its no. 2. But the Artemis crew may take more comfort in solving this problem than any other on this mission. The fix came roughly six hours into the flight \u2014 a period during which at least one astronaut had to resort to peeing in a (NASA flight-approved) bag.<\/p>\n
Soon after launch, NASA confirmed that there was a problem with the toilet fan on the Orion spacecraft<\/a>. The issue was due to a malfunctioning controller \u2014 a part in the toilet\u2019s control system \u2014 said NASA associate administrator Amit Kshatriya at a press conference. The particular difficulty for Artemis 2\u2019s toilet meant that while astronauts could still poop in the toilet, they couldn\u2019t pee in it.<\/p>\n In space toilets, fans aren\u2019t there just to air the place out. In zero gravity, the airflow also helps pull waste into the toilet, preventing it from drifting into the cabin. This was a real problem on Apollo and earlier missions, where the spacecraft had no toilets and astronauts had to poop in plastic bags taped to their butts. A faulty seal could lead to incidents of the kind experienced most infamously on Apollo 10<\/a>. (An example line from the mission transcript: \u201cGive me a napkin quick. There\u2019s a turd floating through the air.\u201d)<\/p>\n RELATED: How astronauts go to the bathroom in space<\/a><\/p>\n Late Wednesday night (EDT), mission specialist Christina Koch took on the role of space plumber, removing parts from the toilet and executing a series of steps radioed up from Houston while controllers on the ground monitored the toilet\u2019s systems and took remote troubleshooting measures, including turning it on and off.<\/p>\n The fix worked.<\/p>\n \u201cHappy to report that toilet is go for use,\u201d said CapCom Amy Dill after the last of Mission Control\u2019s remote evaluations. \u201cWe do recommend letting the system get up to operating speed before donating fluid and then let it run a little bit after donation,\u201d she added, in an impressive piece of NASA jargon.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are cheers all around,\u201d Koch responded.<\/p>\n Cleanup procedures<\/p>\n Although the toilet was fixed, there was still the issue of cleaning up the used urinal bag: \u201cWe have at least one CCU that will need to be emptied,\u201d Koch said, referring to the bag-and-funnel system by its formal name, the Collapsible Contingency Urinal. The standard procedure for emptying the urinal is to dump it overboard through the spacecraft\u2019s venting system.<\/p>\n \u201cWe thought you might,\u201d Dill said. \u201cSo we went ahead and warmed up the heater so you\u2019re good to empty the CCU at your convenience.\u201d<\/p>\n Seconds later, Dill radioed, \u201cAnd correction \u2014 we actually want you to hold off for now on the CCU emptying for potential GNC impact. So we\u2019ll let you know when we\u2019re ready for that.\u201d<\/p>\n GNC stands for guidance, navigation, and control. Translation: Don\u2019t dump your pee overboard yet because doing so at this time might produce a tiny thrust that might push or spin the craft and confuse the ship\u2019s navigation system.<\/p>\n In the early morning hours of April 2 (EDT), the crew was approved to perform the CCU dump.<\/p>\n Fixing a toilet may seem, well, hilarious, and mundane on a mission that NASA has billed as America\u2019s \u201cgrand return to the Moon.\u201d But it\u2019s a reminder that Artemis 2 is fundamentally a test flight, intended to identify issues and fix them. And the toilet on Artemis 2 is historic<\/a>, too, as the first commode to be installed on any crewed deep-space mission. It\u2019s an innovation the crew will surely appreciate over the next 10 days \u2014 and future crews will gladly reap the benefits of their troubleshooting, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List The first-ever deep-space toilet was out of commission for the first six hours of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7690,8,8822,9,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-13118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-artemis-program","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-human-spaceflight","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116337629131693360","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}