No rest room for returning SpaceX crew, caught utilizing diapers

The astronauts who will depart the International Space Station on Sunday will likely be caught utilizing diapers on the best way house due to their capsule’s damaged rest room.

NASA astronaut Megan McArthur described the scenario Friday as “suboptimal” however manageable. She and her three crewmates will spend 20 hours of their SpaceX capsule, from the time the hatches are closed till Monday morning’s deliberate splashdown.

“Spaceflight is full of lots of little challenges,” she mentioned throughout a information convention from orbit. “This is just one more that we’ll encounter and take care of in our mission. So we’re not too worried about it.”

After a collection of conferences Friday, mission managers determined to carry McArthur and the remainder of her crew house earlier than launching their replacements. That SpaceX launch already had been delayed greater than every week by bad weather and an undisclosed medical difficulty involving one of many crew.

SpaceX is now concentrating on liftoff for Wednesday night time on the earliest.

French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who will return with McArthur, informed reporters that the previous six months have been intense up there. The astronauts carried out a collection of spacewalks to improve the station’s power grid, endured inadvertent thruster firings by docked Russian autos that despatched the station into temporary spins, and hosted a non-public Russian movie crew—a space station first.

They additionally needed to take care of the bathroom leak, pulling up panels of their SpaceX capsule and discovering swimming pools of urine. The downside was first famous throughout SpaceX’s personal flight in September, when a tube got here unglued and spilled urine beneath the floorboards. SpaceX mounted the bathroom on the capsule awaiting liftoff, however deemed the one in orbit unusable.

Engineers decided that the capsule had not been structurally compromised by the urine and was protected for the experience again. The astronauts should depend on what NASA describes as absorbent “undergarments.”

On the culinary facet, the astronauts grew the primary chile peppers in space—”a nice moral boost,” in line with McArthur. They obtained to pattern their harvest previously week, including items of the inexperienced and crimson peppers to tacos.

“They have a nice spiciness to them, a little bit of a lingering burn,” she mentioned. “Some found that more troublesome than others.”

Also returning with McArthur and Pesquet: NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide. SpaceX launched them to the space station on April 23. Their capsule is licensed for a most 210 days in space, and with Friday marking their 196th day aloft, NASA is raring to get them again as quickly as attainable.

One American and two Russians will stay on the space station following their departure. While it might be higher if their replacements arrived first—with a purpose to share tips about dwelling in space—Kimbrough mentioned the remaining NASA astronaut will fill within the newcomers.

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