The four astronauts on the Artemis II mission are more than halfway to the moon after launching Wednesday from Kennedy Space Center, but a familiar problem has surfaced.
For the second time since launch, Orion’s toilet is malfunctioning. “During the night, we tried to vent the wastewater tank that’s attached to the toilet.
We had problems with that, due to suspected blockage we think probably due to ice. So we directed the crew overnight to use their collapsible contingency urine devices,” Judd Frieling, the Artemis II flight director, explained during a news conference Saturday.
The astronauts encountered a similar problem with the toilet on the first day of their mission.
The ship’s lunar loo malfunctioned following liftoff and has remained a lingering issue.
Debbie Korth, NASA’s Orion program deputy manager, said the toilet is still operable.
“You know, this is a test flight. We’re figuring out how these systems work together, but it is operable, and we have redundancy to get us through the mission,” she said.
The toilet, NASA confirmed, is still available for astronauts to use for solid waste.
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News Digital’s Michael Sinkewicz.