Astronauts flying to the Moon have a broken toilet

The crew of the Artemis 2 mission faced an unexpected domestic problem on the first day of the flight: the space toilet on board the Orion spacecraft broke down. The reason was a controller malfunction, which caused the ventilation system to stop working properly — the toilet could only be used partially.

Mission specialist Christina Koch took on the role of a «space plumber»: she followed instructions transmitted by radio from Houston while ground controllers remotely monitored the systems and tried to fix the problem, including restarting the equipment. The efforts were successful.

The problem was resolved about 6 hours after launch. All this time, the astronauts had to use special packages. The malfunction was critical: in zero gravity, airflow is necessary not only for ventilation but also for waste removal — without it, they could get into the cabin.

After the fault was successfully resolved, AmyDill’s service provider confirmed that the toilet was ready for use again and recommended that the system be allowed to reach its operating mode before the first use. The crew joked that this was one of the most important achievements of the first day of the mission.

The Orion spacecraft is carrying out the Artemis 2 mission, the first manned flight in the human return to the Moon program. After the launch, the spacecraft routinely separated from the launch vehicle and deployed solar panels. The toilet incident was the only abnormal situation on the first day of the flight.