EverythingScience

‍TOILET UPDATE: It is now available again.

Following ~2 hours of pointing the vent at the sun, whatever was blocking it appears to have melted, and a waste dump was conducted.

The crew can now dump the contents of their Contingency Urinals as required.

The toilet broke again. Someone call the space plumber.

Mission Control Houston believes that a frozen vent is to blame, and have oriented Integrity so that the sun will warm this vent & melt the blockage.

This is not diminishing the Artemis II crew's views of Earth however. Commander astro Reid Wiseman: "It's just a truly remarkable sight".

When the toilet is out-of-action, the crew can make use of Collapsible Contingency Urinals (CCUs).

How do you keep organ chips “alive” in deep space?

Custom equipment inside Orion automatically controls temperature and feeds the AVATAR organ chips throughout the Artemis II mission.

Learn more about AVATAR: go.nasa.gov/4sWkqeA

Lock in, we’re Moonbound.

Artemis II astronauts are more than halfway to their destination, and preparations for lunar flyby are underway. During their trip around the far side of the Moon, they will capture imagery to share with scientists (and you, too!).

"We can see the Moon out of the docking hatch right now. It's a beautiful sight."

Flight day 3 is in the books, and our NASA Artemis II crew is now closer to the Moon than to Earth. Check out highlights from our lunar mission. What’s been your favorite moment so far?

When astronauts first made their way to the moon, they did so without a toilet. The Apollo program’s system of plastic bags and funnels was so unwieldy and messy that crew members found it “objectionable” and “distasteful,” according to a subsequent NASA report. But now, more than a half century since the last crewed lunar voyages and their toilet troubles, the four astronauts of NASA’s Artemis II mission will take flight with a more commodious bathroom in tow.

The space agency’s Universal Waste Management System (UWMS)—more colloquially called just “the toilet”—was created to solve longstanding potty problems faced by astronauts and to offer a more familiar bathroom experience on the final frontier. Lunar astronauts will now be spoiled by amenities that include handles to help them stay steady in microgravity, a system that can handle both urine and feces simultaneously, urine-collection devices that work for both male and female astronauts, and even a door for the helpful illusion of privacy in a cramped crew capsule.

The new design is more than a decade in the making. Space infrastructure company Collins Aerospace first entered into a contract with NASA to develop the project in 2015. In that time, project scientists have overcome fundamental issues with past space toilets while imagining and meeting future needs so that the same system used by Artemis II astronauts could be adapted for moon and Mars missions in decades to come.

From air pressure to rocket thrust, Orion faces many forces in flight—and engineers like Quyen Jones in the Orion Mission Evaluation Room track them all. After a clean launch and spot‑on TLI burn, her team is excited to see data match years of testing on Artemis II.

1972 ➤ 2026
Apollo 17 ➤ Artemis II

A view from cameras on board the Orion spacecraft as it climbs to orbit, powered by the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket following a 6:35 p.m. EDT liftoff on April 1, 2026. Included is the jettison of the solid rocket boosters that propelled Orion for the first two minutes of flight, and the jettison of the spacecraft adapter jettison panels, which protect the spacecraft's solar array wings during ascent.

Since everyone always asks... 🤔

The universal waste management system aboard the Orion spacecraft is a compact, 5-cubic-foot toilet designed for microgravity. Solid waste is stored in odor-controlled canisters, while pre-treated urine is vented overboard daily.

Artemis II successfully deployed 4 CubeSats in high Earth orbit. 

These satellites, developed with our Artemis Accords partners DLR, CONAE, 우주항공청 KASA, and وكالة الفضاء السعودية, will demonstrate radiation research, space weather monitoring, and new technologies that will be critical to advancing future deep-space exploration.

In their first live downlink event, NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen spoke with ABC and Fox News to discuss their mission so far. The conversations took place on Thursday, April 2, with the Artemis II crew aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft making their way to the Moon.

Fun fact: The main engine behind the boost to the moon flew before on six Space Shuttle Atlantis missions.

The European Service Module has 33 engines, but this is the only one capable of sending the Orion spacecraft towards the Moon, some 380 000 kilometres away.

🌚 We’re halfway there.

At the time of posting this (02:00 UTC), the Artemis II mission is about halfway to the Moon. When the astronauts arrive, they will conduct a lunar flyby and collect scientific observations of the Moon’s surface.

🌐 Live stream
📝 Live timeline
🗺 Live position
⬅️ Trajectory animation

Artemis II Science Officer, reporting for duty. 🚀

There’s a new “SCIENCE” seat in the main NASA Artemis flight control room. Yesterday, Kelsey Young of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center became the first person to step into this role during an Artemis mission.

The Science Officer represents a whole community. Just one floor away, in a backroom at Mission Control, the Artemis II Lunar Science Team is hard at work. They have been preparing for this moment – and getting astronauts ready for Moon observing missions – for years.

They’ve led training expeditions to Earth's most Moon-like places, custom-built lunar geology classes, worked out the fine points of photographing the Moon from space, and spent countless hours in mission simulations.

Now, together with the crew and flight controllers, they’re not just helping Artemis II reach its full science potential—they’re laying a strong foundation for future missions.

Meet the Artemis II Science Officers: go.nasa.gov/4bRILw9