A problem with the toilet aboard the Crew Dragon capsule from SpaceX will leave a group of four astronauts with no bathroom option.
On their return trip from the International Space Station this month, these crew members will have to wear “underwear” to work around the problem, Steve Stich, manager of the Commercial Crew Program at the company, told reporters on Friday. Nasa.
SpaceX first discovered a problem with its spacecraft bathroom last month while inspecting a different Crew Dragon capsule than the one normally used.
The company realized that a tube used to channel urine to a storage tank had peeled off and was leaving a dirty puddle hidden under the capsule’s floor. It was a discovery that affected all three spacecraft the company operates.
NASA has not said how long the four astronauts – NASA’s Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, the European Space Agency’s French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, and Japan’s Akihiko Hoshide – will have to stay aboard the four-metre-wide Crew Dragon capsule, with an inoperable bathroom.
So far, only two Crew Dragon spacecraft have returned from the ISS with people on board – the first trip back took 19 hours, while the second took just six.
The length of the trip depends on several factors, including orbital dynamics and weather. “We are always working to reduce the time from docking the space station to landing and that’s what we’re going to do with this flight,” added Stich.
The problem in Crew Dragon’s bathroom arose during SpaceX’s Inspiration4 mission in September, which carried four people on the first tourist-only mission to orbit, which lasted three days.
Jared Isaacman, the commander and funder of the Inspiration4 mission, as it was named, told the CNN Business last month an alarm went off during the mission, alerting the crew to a faulty bathroom fan.
According to his account, he and his fellow travelers had to work with SpaceX controllers on the ground to momentarily solve the problem.
The incident did not cause any serious problems for the Inspiration4 mission team, nor was there any leakage of bodily fluids inside the capsule. But after the Inspiration4 crew returned to Earth, SpaceX dismantled their spacecraft to see what could have gone wrong.
“A tube was disconnected from the urine storage tank,” said William Gerstenmaier, a former NASA director who now works as SpaceX’s head of mission assurance. “With that, the urine was diverted to the ventilation system instead of going to the tank.”
Vulnerabilities like this can arise even after spacecraft have made all the necessary test flights, been examined and approved, and even completed missions.
Weightless
Fans are used in spacecraft bathrooms to create suction and control the flow of urine because, in the microgravity environment of space, waste can (and does) go in all possible directions.
In the particular case, the Inspiration4 crew did not notice any excrement floating around the cabin because the leak was still relegated to fenced areas under the floor, Gerstenmaier said.
SpaceX is working to clean up and fix the problem on the Inspiration4 spacecraft, which is called Resilience.
A new Crew Dragon capsule, dubbed Endurance and scheduled to take four more astronauts to the ISS on Wednesday (3), will take off with the reinforced sealing system.
The four astronauts returning to Earth have been aboard the ISS since April. During this period, the Crew Dragon Endeavor capsule remained attached to the ISS, serving as a lifeboat ready to take them home.
When astronauts recently inspected the capsule, they discovered a leak in the toilet and evidence of urine on the walls. But because they’re still in space, they can’t fix the problem right away.
As the space station has its own bathrooms, the problem with the capsule will only be a nuisance on the return trip (which could happen later this weekend, according to NASA), when they will have to rely on the provisional clothing option. reinforced intimates.
Although less comfortable, the spacecraft will not have its safety compromised on the return journey. SpaceX has performed a series of ground tests to ensure that the Crew Dragon’s aluminum frame can hold the leaked urine and that the substance has not become dangerously corrosive.
To do this, SpaceX researchers coated a few pieces of metal in urine mixed with Oxone (the same substance used to remove ammonia from urine aboard the Crew Dragon) and found only limited corrosion in contact with aluminum, Gerstenmaier said.
“We’re going to check everything three times, and we have a few more samples that we’ll take from the chambers and inspect,” he said last week. “But we will be ready to go and make sure the crew is safe to return.”
(Translated text. Click here to read the original in English)
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