Artemis II’s moonbound toilet is working again to astronauts’ relief after overnight fix

Cape Canaveral, Florida – NASA astronauts who have traveled to the moon have reason to celebrate, and not just because their launch went well. Their toilet is working now.

The so-called lunar toilet malfunctioned just as the Artemis II crew reached orbit on Wednesday evening. Mission Control walked astronaut Christina Koch through some plumbing tricks to fix it.

The three Americans and one Canadian are on their way to deorbit Earth on Thursday evening and approach the moon for a moonwalk. This will be Mission Control’s first translunar injection since Apollo’s swan song in 1972.

Mission managers gave a “go” late Thursday afternoon to get the engine running. Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen said: “We love those words, and we love the view.”

To set the mood, Mission Control’s wake-up music for the crew was John Legend’s “Green Light” featuring Andre 3000. The song broke down into a 3-2-1 for the astronauts’ thunderous liftoff, followed by a variety of greetings from NASA teams across the country.

“We were ready to go, and that was great,” pilot Victor Glover said.

While waiting for their orbital launch, the astronauts enjoyed views of Earth from tens of thousands of miles up. Koch told Mission Control they can map entire coastlines of continents and even Antarctica, its ancient home.

“It’s quite extraordinary,” said Koch, who spent a year at an Antarctic research station before joining NASA, said over the radio.

Mission Control was able to raise the temperature of the Orion capsule’s cabin. It was so cold earlier in the mission — 65 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius) — that the four astronauts had to rummage through their bags for long-sleeved clothing.

The mission, led by Reed Wiseman, is scheduled to end with a landing in the Pacific Ocean on April 10. NASA is counting on the test flight to kick-start the entire Artemis program and lead to the landing of two astronauts on the moon in 2028.

Before that happens, the Orion toilet may need some design modifications.

The capsule’s only toilet is located on the floor with a door and curtain for privacy, and is inspired by the experimental toilet launched to the International Space Station in 2020. This toilet has seen almost no use and has been idle for years.

The compact toilet, known as the Universal Waste Management System, uses air suction instead of water and gravity to remove waste, similar to previous space toilets. It is also designed to better accommodate female astronauts.

Koch and her colleagues had to resort to a bag-and-funnel system to urinate until she could run the toilet through the night.

Any toilet — even a spotty one — is better than none if you ask any of the six surviving Apollo astronauts.

NASA’s Apollo capsules were too small to fit a toilet, so the all-male crew relied on bags to relieve themselves throughout the lunar voyage. These so-called Apollo bags were reused during NASA’s space shuttle flights; They served as a backup when the shuttle toilet acted up.

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