We thank God.
SpaceX claims it has fixed its space toilet in just days before its next Crew Dragon launch on Sunday. This is the fourth and fifth crewed missions to orbit.
Given the stakes, it was an unusual race against time. It is not something that astronauts want to do, knowing that space has a lot of human urine.
It also serves as a reminder about how essential toilets in space are. Without a functional toilet space exploration could become a very messy business. This lesson NASA learned over half a century back.
The onboard toilet caused some problems for space tourists aboard the Inspiration4 mission last month. The tubes inside the toilet were not glued and urine could spray onto an area below the capsules floor.
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It wasn't something we noticed, it was not something the crew noticed until we got back. This is according to Bill Gerstenmaier, a SpaceX official, who used to oversee human spaceflight for NASA. We looked under the vehicle and found that there was contamination beneath Inspiration4.
According to the Times, the same problem occurred on the Crew Dragon capsule that previously docked with the International Space Station in April with four astronauts.
SpaceX engineers were worried that this could happen again at the weekend launch. SpaceX claims it was able to solve the problem.
Crew-3 has been made an all-welded structure without any joints that could come undone or become dislocated. This was stated by Gerstenmaier during Monday's press conference.
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Gerstenmaier stated that the metal used for the enclosure housing the urine escaped was not in danger of corroding, which means that neither the previous spacecraft nor the current one have sustained any permanent damage.
Gerstenmaier explained to reporters that either by luck or design, the aluminum alloy we chose is insensitive to corrosion.
READ MORE: SpaceX has installed a space toilet on Dragon to facilitate NASA's Crew-3 astronaut launch [Space.com]
Continue reading Crew Dragon: SpaceX redesigns capsule toilet after it breaks, sprays piss
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