There’s a bit of toilet trouble on NASA’s Artemis 2 mission to the moon

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — There’s a little potty problem on NASA’s Artemis 2 moon ship.

Within hours of launch on Wednesday evening (April 1), the four astronauts of NASA’s Artemis 2 moon mission reported a glitch in what may have been the most anticipated new creature comfort of their Orion spacecraft: their space toilet.

Artemis 2 mission specialist Christina Koch noted an issue starting up 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 that astronauts can still use the space commode to poop, just not urinate for now, though engineers are 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.”

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 in a video overview.

Vlog 18: The lunar loo – or going to the bathroom during a mission to the Moon – YouTube

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The toilet is technically known as the “hygiene bay” and has about as much room as the bathroom on a passenger jet, according to Lockheed Martin, which built the Orion spacecraft for NASA. It’s part of Orion’s systems to support an astronaut crew — NASA’s uncrewed Artemis 1 test flight to the moon in 2022 didn’t carry one — but there are backup systems aboard, like those Apollo-era bags, if they’re needed.

The Artemis 2 astronauts use foot restraints to help stay in place while using the toilet, which uses airflow to draw solid waste away from the body and into a collection device. For urine, each astronaut has his or her own personal funnel to use, with a fan that draws the urine into a tank.

“That’s absolutely an important component on this ship,” Blaine Brown, Lockheed Martin’s director of Orion spacecraft mechanical systems, told Space.com in an interview. “You can call it a luxury. Some call it a necessity.”

NASA’s Artemis 2 mission is a historic test flight to send astronauts on a 10-day trip around the moon. It’s the first crewed flight of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System rocket that launched them on their way.

The mission is the vanguard of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to land astronauts on the moon by 2028 and begin a permanent moon base by 2032.