Astronauts Face Toilet Challenges on Return Flight

NASA and SpaceX’s combined Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station has seen a few hiccups prior to liftoff, including bad weather, minor medical issues, and one leaky toilet.

Jeremy Kariuki

Tuesday, November 02, 2021 at 09:54 PM ET

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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. SpaceX

Key Takeaways:

The four Crew-2 astronauts returning from the ISS on SpaceX's Crew Dragon "Endeavour" will not use the onboard toilet during their approximately six-hour journey due to a urine leak issue.
Instead, they will rely on "undergarments" in their suits for necessary functions during the return leg of the mission.
NASA and SpaceX have identified the cause of the leak (an adhesive issue) and implemented a design improvement for the upcoming Crew-3 mission, ensuring their capsule's toilet system is robust.

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NASA is sending four astronauts up to the ISS in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. Once docked, those four will begin their six-month mission on board while the four Crew-2 astronauts will head back to Earth—without a usable toilet.

“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.”