The toilet in the Crew Dragon Endeavor capsule had a leak.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, WASHINGTON — Astronauts won’t be able to use the toilet in the capsule SpaceX Dragons. American Space Agency (NASA) officials said Friday night (29/10) that SpaceX’s toilet was Crew Dragon Endeavour will be off limits to the next four Crew-2 mission astronauts once they leave the International Space Station (ISS) in early November.
Reported from Space, Sunday (31/10), the cause is due to possible urine leakage in the toilet as seen on the civil aviation Inspiration4 last September. SpaceX has since redesigned its toilets to avoid leaks on future flights.
“Our goal is not to use the system at all for the return journey because of what we’ve seen with fluids we talked about,” Steve Stitch, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew, told reporters Friday in a pre-launch briefing for SpaceX. .
The launch of the Crew-3 astronauts is set for next week. “We have other ways to allow crews to do the activities they need,” Stitch said.
Another way is to use underwear. This ‘waste’ management device has long been used by astronauts to urinate while wearing spacesuits during launch, landing, or space travel.
“Whenever the crew puts on a suit, they wear underwear inside the suit and it’s a short mission home. So, wearing underwear is commonplace and they can use it on their way home. It has become a backup for every space flight,” said Stitch.
The astronauts who returned to Earth on the Crew-2 mission were NASA’s Shane Kimbrough and Meghan McArthur, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and astronaut Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency. They launched into the station in April and are expected to return home on November 4 with a landing off the coast of Florida.
That landing date may change after SpaceX and NASA postponed the launch of the Crew-2, Crew-3 relief mission until November 2 due to bad weather. The Crew-2 astronauts will return after the handover with their incoming crew.
Stitch said SpaceX and NASA have been working to shorten the time it takes the Dragon crew to return to Earth after leaving the space station.
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