The launch of Artemis II Wednesday evening, marking humanity’s return to the moon, was largely a success, but there was one stinky problem inside the Orion spacecraft.
As astronauts performed a burn to adjust the spacecraft’s altitude while orbiting Earth, the crew noticed a blinking fault light on the toilet. NASA officials said the toilet appeared to be jammed after liftoff.
The crew and ground teams resolved the issue within several hours.
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It was among several problems NASA addressed after liftoff.
“We had a controller issue with the toilet when they spun it up, so we've got to work through that,” NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya said.
He also noted communications were briefly intermittent and that a water tank was temporarily closed due to the shaking of the spacecraft.
The new toilet system, officially named the Universal Waste Management System, is far different from the one Apollo astronauts used on their journeys to the moon. Apollo astronauts urinated into diapers and bags, and stored solid waste in bags mixed with bactericide to bring back to Earth.
Orion’s toilet uses airflow to pull fluid and solid waste away from the body and into the proper containers. NASA says the toilet also has an automatic airflow feature that helps control odor.
“Pretreated urine, which prevents the generation of ammonia from the breakdown of the urine, is stored in a urine tank and then vented overboard each day by the crew, much like the space shuttle,” NASA said. “Solid waste is collected in fecal canisters, which the crew replaces every few days, and stored in Orion for the 21-day mission. The canisters have filtered caps to control odor and gas buildup generated within the cans.”
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The four-person crew is spending most of Thursday in low-Earth orbit. Thursday evening, the astronauts will perform a burn to leave low-Earth orbit and head toward the moon.
The astronauts are expected to reach the far side of the moon Monday before using a “slingshot” maneuver to return to Earth.
