Overview
- Mission control cleared Orion’s Universal Waste Management System for full use after a roll to sun‑warm a frozen urine vent unclogged the line.
- Hours into the flight, astronaut Christina Koch restored initial function by priming the toilet’s pump with more liquid.
- A later dump failure involved crystallized urine in the vent line, and a burning smell in the hygiene bay was reported and linked by controllers to heated door insulation.
- The UWMS vents urine into space, where it can freeze in the line, and it packs feces into a canister for return to Earth.
- NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the crew was prepared with redundancies and called a working toilet “almost a bonus capability.”