Crew members on the historic Artemis II deep space moon mission were relieved to learn some good news following an embarrassing malfunction with their high-tech toilet hours after the spacecraft’s launch on Wednesday.
The last time a crewed flight went to the moon, the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the astronauts had to poop into plastic bags, according to Space.com.
But advancements in space toilet technology have allowed the crew aboard Artemis II — NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen — to have a real, working toilet for their 10-day mission.
The toilet is “absolutely an important component” of the vessel, said Blaine Brown, Lockheed Martin’s director of Orion spacecraft mechanical systems.
Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images
In a video posted last year, Hansen said he and his colleagues were “pretty fortunate as a crew to have a toilet with a door on this tiny spacecraft.”
The Canadian astronaut called the ship’s hygiene bay “the one place that we can go during the mission where we can actually feel like we’re alone for a moment.”
But just hours after the historic launch, Koch told Mission Control that the toilet fan was jammed, NASA spokesperson Gary Jordan said during live mission commentary. The crew could still use the toilet to dispose of solid waste, but not fluid waste.
“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,” Jordan said.
Norm Knight, NASA’s director of flight operations, attributed the malfunction to a controller issue on the toilet, Space.com reported.
Fortunately, NASA announced Thursday that the toilet issue was resolved.
Mission Control told Koch early Thursday, “You are good to use toilet all night.”
