On April 1, NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket sent four astronauts on a mission to the moon in the Artemis program’s first crewed flight. The lunar flyby will be the first time humans have been in the moon’s vicinity in more than 50 years. But not long after the crew took off, they ran into a problem: trouble with their spacecraft’s toilet.

A key engine burn Thursday is expected to put NASA's Artemis II astronauts on an irreversible path around the moon.

The four astronauts on the Artemis II mission around the moon got some relief overnight after troubleshooting a malfunctioning toilet on the Orion spacecraft. It’s not as if there was a plumbing

NASA officials described the malfunction as a “controller issue”

Just hours after the Artemis II mission successfully launched its historic deep space lunar flyby, the four-person crew experienced a problem with the Orion spacecraft’s high-tech toilet. Artemis II mission specialist Christina Koch — the only woman onboard the 10-day mission — first reported the issue to Mission Control not long after Wednesday night’s breathtaking liftoff from Kennedy Space Center.

The Orion spacecraft will take four crew members and one commode around the moon and back as part of the Artemis II mission. In April 2025, National Geographic worked with NASA and filmed the astronauts at an Orion space capsule model in Houston.