“There were no issues with the vehicle itself,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said Wednesday at a post-launch news briefing. “Comms with the crew have been restored. We’re actively working the issue.”
The crew members also reported a blinking fault light while they tested their onboard toilet Wednesday.
Called the Universal Waste Management System, the toilet on the Orion capsule is designed to vent urine overboard and store feces until the crew’s return. It is separated by a door on the capsule’s floor to allow some privacy. A similar toilet has been tested on the International Space Station.
Mission managers worked with the astronauts to assess the problem overnight, and NASA confirmed early Thursday that the crew was able to restore the space toilet to normal operations.
Had it not been fixed, the backup plan was for the crew to use what NASA calls “collapsible contingency urinals” to collect urine in bags. The toilet would still have been used for fecal collection.
The Earth’s horizon from NASA’s Orion spacecraft as it orbits during the first hours of the Artemis II flight.NASA YouTube
A third issue that cropped up may feel the most relatable to many people on Earth: While the astronauts were setting up their computers, they requested tech support from Mission Control. The culprit? Microsoft Outlook.
“I also see that I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working,” Wiseman, the mission’s commander, radioed to the ground.
Mission controllers were eventually able to gain remote access to the computers and bring Outlook back online for the astronauts.
A view over the shoulders of NASA astronauts Victor Glover, left, and Reid Wiseman, the pilot and the commander, respectively, inside the Orion spacecraft.NASA
With early glitches solved, the Artemis II astronauts completed a major milestone Thursday evening: a key engine burn that put them on a trajectory to fly around the moon.
The maneuver, known as a translunar injection burn, lasted just under six minutes. Orion’s main engine fired, boosting the capsule’s velocity enough to send it out of Earth orbit.
The crew is “now on trajectory to fly around the moon for the first time in 50 years,” Mission Control said after the burn was complete.
A view of the Earth from NASA’s Orion spacecraft as it orbits the planet.NASA
It was the last engine burn of that magnitude on the Artemis II mission, since the spacecraft’s path relies heavily on the gravitational pulls of Earth and the moon. Now that the translunar injection is complete, the astronauts are on an irreversible journey around the moon.
The burn came after the astronauts got some sleep Thursday, with their wakeup call coming at 2:35 p.m. ET. They awoke to the song “Green Light” by John Legend and messages from NASA employees and members of the teams that helped them get to space. Glover thanked them for the kind words.
Roughly a couple of hours after that, mission managers in Houston met to decide whether to go through with the translunar injection burn.
The team polled “go.”