Artemis II astronauts have toilet trouble on their way towards the Moon

Artemis II astronauts have toilet trouble on their way towards the Moon

NASA aims to take humans farther into space than any mission has achieved before, but one system continues to face challenges—Orion’s onboard toilet. As the Artemis II crew orbits the Moon, the four astronauts have reported minor malfunctions with the waste management system. On Saturday, the toilet failed to expel waste due to a frozen vent line, according to NASA. To cope, the crew relied on collapsible plastic containers for urine collection, a temporary workaround.

The mission is now in its fifth day, progressing through its historic 10-day journey around the Moon. The crew—comprising NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, alongside Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen—resides in a compact capsule, roughly the size of a camper van, measuring 5 meters wide and 3 meters tall. During a video call with Earth on Thursday, mission specialist Koch humorously noted a “priming” issue with the toilet, quipping,

“I’m proud to call myself the space plumber, I like to say that it is probably the most important piece of equipment on board.”

Later, NASA announced in a press release that a wastewater vent line had become obstructed. To resolve the issue, the crew adjusted the spacecraft’s orientation, directing the vent toward the Sun to aid in clearing the blockage. This maneuver didn’t alter their trajectory, the agency clarified. While it freed up space in the waste management tank, the problem wasn’t entirely resolved. Engineers are using vent heaters to melt ice potentially clogging the line, and the crew was advised to use backup containers overnight if needed.

John Honeycutt, head of the Artemis II Mission Management Team, acknowledged the public’s fascination with the space toilet during a Saturday evening press conference.

“I think the fixation on the toilet is kind of human nature,” he said. “Everybody knows how important that is to us here on Earth. And it’s harder to manage in space.”

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman echoed this sentiment in a Sunday CNN interview, stating,

“We can do a lot of extraordinary things in space right now, but nailing this capability is one that we need to certainly work on.”

The spacecraft is following a looping path that will take it beyond the Moon’s far side and back. This marks the first time humans have ventured beyond Earth’s orbit since 1972. While the crew won’t land on the Moon, their orbit will test Orion’s systems, including manual maneuvers in Earth’s orbit to refine steering and prepare for future lunar landings.