NASA troubleshoots Artemis II toilet problem in otherwise smooth flight
THE Astronauts of Artemis IIen route for a flight around the hidden side of the moon It was a relatively quiet day aboard the Orion crew capsule Monday, Saturday, as engineers on the ground worked to resolve a toilet problem.
Overnight, Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen reached a milestone of sorts on their historic journey to the Moon.
“And Integrity, (here) Houston, we have some news to share with you,” spacecraft communicator Jackie Mahafey called to mission control. “30 seconds ago, you are now closer to the Moon than to us on Earth.”
A camera on the tip of Orion’s solar wing shows the spacecraft and its target – the moon – suspended in the black of deep space. / Credit: NASA
“Wow, Jackie, thanks for sharing that with us,” Koch responded. “We all had a sort of collective expression, I guess, of joy at that. It’s hard to imagine, but we can see here on our (instrumentation) that we’re 118,000 nautical miles (from the moon). So yeah, you can do the math.”
Astronauts looked toward Earth on Friday and captured this stunning photo of the home planet in the shape of a thin crescent. / Credit: NASA
She said the crew was enjoying the view of the moon through Orion’s docking hatch window.
“It’s a magnificent sight,” Koch said. “We’re seeing more and more of the dark side, and it’s just a pleasure to be here.”
Astronaut Christina Koch admires planet Earth as the Artemis II crew heads into deep space and completes a flight around the far side of the Moon on Monday. / Credit: NASA
The crew has had intermittent problems with their space toilet since launch on Wednesdaysometimes being asked to avoid its use in favor of collapsible emergency urinals, or CCUs, bags used for urine collection that can be emptied into space later.
Early Saturday, as the crew prepared for bed, flight controllers were unable to flush urine stored in the toilet overboard, likely because of a frozen vent line. The astronauts were once again asked to use their CCUs until the problem was resolved.
Later that day, after the crew woke up, flight controllers reoriented the Orion capsule to allow sunlight to warm the wastewater ventilation line in hopes of thawing any frozen material. The procedure was called “steaming.”
Another solar wing camera was aimed at the Orion spacecraft after the ship was maneuvered to place a sewage nozzle in direct sunlight. The goal was to warm it enough to melt suspected ice in a waste pipe, preventing flight controllers from emptying a urine collection tank used by the capsule’s toilet. / Credit: NASA
“We’ve increased the temperature of the heater on the nozzle and on the lines themselves, and we’re hoping that if the problem is freezing of the vent lines… then this will give us a chance to see if we’re able to resolve that problem,” Mission Control radioed to the crew.
“We’ll have the cameras on it and we’ll be able to take pictures of that. Because of all of this, we’ve rescheduled overnight, your schedule is going to be a little bit in flux. We’re working on moving some things forward. Some things may have to be moved back to the morning because of this maneuver.”
Veteran astronaut Don Pettit said in a social media post about
A collapsible emergency urinal, or CCU according to NASA. is essentially a resealable bag that can hold urine for later disposal if problems arise with a spaceship’s toilet. / Credit: NASA/Don Pettit
“When you’re in cislunar space with a broken toilet,” he continued, “you need emergency measures, and the CCU replaces the need for about 25 pounds of diapers.”
Otherwise, Orion behaved well. For the second day in a row, the planned firing of the trajectory correction thruster was canceled after analysis showed the spacecraft was still on a near-perfect trajectory.
Later Saturday, Wiseman and Glover planned to manually pilot the Orion capsule to help engineers better understand the spacecraft’s performance in flight and to provide practical feedback to future Artemis astronauts.
The four crew members were expected to spend time at the end of the day reviewing their plans for video and camera mapping of the lunar surface during their pass behind the Moon on Monday. A close approach to the other side, at an altitude of about 4,100 miles, is planned for 7:03 p.m. EDT.
The Moon has been observed in great detail by low-altitude satellites, but the Artemis II crew will have a unique chance to observe features on the far side of the Moon that no human has ever directly experienced.
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