Astronauts Face Toilet Challenges on Return Flight

“Our intent is to not use the system at all, right, for the return leg home,” said NASA commercial crew program manager Steve Stich. “Because of what we’ve seen with fluid … so we don’t intend to use that system at all. And we have other means to allow the crew to, um, perform the functions they need to.”

The Endeavour spacecraft has been experiencing an adhesive issue, where urine is leaking out of a tube connected to the storage tank, causing quite the mess underneath the capsule floor.

The Crew-2 astronauts will have to go in their suits, using “undergarments” as their backup. The last Crew Dragon capsule took about six hours to return to Earth from the ISS. Hopefully, the astronauts will remember to go before they leave the station.

Fortunately for the Crew-3 astronauts, the problem has already been solved for their upcoming trip.

“We did work together with NASA to limit the system’s use during the Crew-2 return downhill portion of the mission,” said Sarah Walker, Dragon mission management director. “And as mentioned, we went ahead and rolled in a design improvement that’s been fully qualified and reviewed by NASA for the Crew-3 mission, launching hopefully this weekend, to make the system even more robust.”

Returning home this month are Crew-2 astronauts Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, Akihiko Hoshide, and Thomas Pesquet.

NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, and Kayla Barron are joined by European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer for the Crew-3 mission. The team is currently in quarantine following a minor medical issue of one of the crew members. NASA reported that it is not COVID-19 related and expects to launch as early as Saturday at 11:36 p.m.

Pilots are familiar with the challenges faced by the crews, with their own ways of dealing with the … issue.