Spaceflight is hard, but crewed spaceflight is a million times harder. With humans onboard, engineers have to account for a long list of biological needs\u2014including going to the bathroom.<\/p>\n
Designing a toilet that works reliably in an unforgiving microgravity environment is an engineering challenge NASA is apparently still grappling with. Artemis 2<\/a> is the first mission to send the agency\u2019s Universal Waste Management System (UWMS) beyond low-Earth orbit. This state-of-the-art space toilet has been aboard the International Space Station since 2021, but the modified version NASA installed on the Orion spacecraft appears to be on the fritz.<\/p>\n A toilet trouble timeline <\/p>\n Just hours after Artemis 2 launched on April 1<\/a>, the toilet\u2019s urine collection fan jammed. Artemis 2 Mission Specialist Christina Koch worked with ground control to troubleshoot the problem and earned<\/a> herself the esteemed title of \u201cspace plumber,\u201d but that wasn\u2019t the end of the crew\u2019s toilet trouble.<\/p>\n On April 3, the crew reported<\/a> a burning smell emanating from the toilet, but that did not alarm mission control\u2014even though Koch said the odor was similar to one they smelled when the toilet malfunctioned on the first day of the mission. Houston told the astronauts they could keep using the bathroom as usual, suspecting the smell could be coming from orange insulation around the door to the hygiene bay.<\/p>\n Then, the UWMS began struggling<\/a> to dump stored urine out into space, possibly due to a frozen vent line. Mission control advised the crew to use the contingency urine collection bags to pee while engineers worked to heat the nozzle and clear the ice.<\/p>\n