Artemis II is going so well that we're left to talk about frozen urine

2 work for Artemis II is going so well that we're left to talk about frozen urine 'I think the fixation on the toilet is kind of human nature.' 81 The Orion spacecraft is performing well during the Artemis II mission. Credit: NASA The Orion spacecraft is performing well during the Artemis II missio

Space·April 5, 2026·3 min read

The Lead

Artemis II is going so well that we're left to talk about frozen urine. 2 work for Artemis II is going so well that we're left to talk about frozen urine "I think the fixation on the toilet is kind of human nature." 81 The Orion spacecraft is performing well during the Artemis II mission. Credit: NASA The Orion spacecraft is performing well during the Artemis II mission. Credit: NASA Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only Learn more Minimize to nav The Orion spacecraft is now much closer to the Moon than Earth on its 10-day journey into deep space and back, and overall everything is going smashingly well. Things are going so well.

Key Details

As you may recall, there were some toilet problems in the initial hours of the mission. During the initial checkout of spacecraft systems, Orion’s toilet was supposed to be “wetted” with water to prime the pump. Not enough water was introduced, so the pump was non-responsive. Once more water was added, it began functioning fine. It was a minor blip, but the Internet went crazy for crap for about 24 hours. By Friday night there was another problem. Urine is.

Context

From there it is supposed to be vented into space, which is to say dumped overboard to sail around the cosmos until the end of time. However, flight controllers noted that astronaut pee had frozen in the tank. There were no issues with using the toilet for no. To address the problem Orion was maneuvered into an orientation such that the urine tank and vent lines received the maximum amount of sunshine to un-freeze the urine. This helped a little.

What's Next

During Saturday’s news conference the chair of the Mission Management Team, a NASA engineer named John Honeycutt, was asked about the public fascination with Orion’s toilet. He said he understood the interest. “ I think the fixation on the toilet is kind of human nature,” he said. Honeycutt added that it is not a mission risk, but said if the astronauts were essentially camping out in space, the current setup makes the whole situation a little more difficult. “I know.