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Orion Gets Next-Gen Toilet for NASA’s Artemis II Mission

The in-flight trial will guide how future lunar and Mars crews manage waste in deep space.

The Artemis 2 spacecraft’s toilet features a urine hose, pictured here being taken out of its cradled position in this ground demonstration. Air flows through the hose and pulls urine into the ship’s waste management system. Credit: NASA
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How Will Artemis II Astronauts Use Toilet In Space?

Overview

  • NASA has installed a lunar-adapted Universal Waste Management System in the Orion capsule for Artemis II, a roughly 10-day lunar flyby with four astronauts.
  • The standardized toilet supports urine and feces at the same time, uses unisex interfaces, and adds a true door for privacy in the phone‑booth‑size stall.
  • Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen described how urine flows through a hose and is vented to space a few times a day, while feces are pulled into a bag and compressed into a canister.
  • The crew will swap out the solid‑waste canister multiple times during the mission and bring the sealed canisters back to Earth for assessment.
  • Collins Aerospace began the project with NASA in 2015, 3D‑printed the titanium system to be lightweight and modular, proved it on the ISS by 2021, and will use Artemis II feedback to refine designs for later Artemis and Mars flights.