NASA to launch upgraded microgravity toilet at International Space Station

Late Thursday evening, the Northrop Grumman rocket is scheduled to depart from the Virginia coast, with an advanced space toilet for astronauts on the International Space Station. Smaller and lighter than existing toilets on the ISS, the new commode is believed to be even more convenient for female astronauts who need to use space facilities.

Known as the Universal Waste Management System, the toilet is one of two upgraded toilets that NASA makes up to 23 23 million. While one launch tonight is scheduled for ISS, another similar toilet called Orion will also be added to NASA’s future Deep-Space Crew capsule. NASA plans to send astronauts to the moon using Orion in the coming years, and a universal waste management system, or UWMS, will be inside the capsule for anyone in need along the way.

This toilet will travel in deep space, so NASA needed something compact but it is just as efficient as the toilets of the past. Heavy and bulky objects are more expensive and more difficult to launch. So NASA did its best to optimize the size of the toilet, which would make it 65 percent smaller and 40 percent lighter than current ISS toilets. The agency also says engineers have made the toilet more energy efficient. “You can imagine that optimizing this could help in a lot of ways, as space and power on the spacecraft are at a premium,” said Melissa McKinley, NASA’s UWMS project manager, during a press conference last week.

Despite this upgrade, the new UWMS toilet works more or less the same as the toilets already in the space. All microgravity toilets depend on one important thing: suction. Suction ensures that the debris generated by the astronauts is actually dragged into the toilet and does not inadvertently float around the crew cabin. To warm up in the morning current toilets on the ISS, astronauts use a funnel attached to a hose, with a fan inside, which draws urine into the tank. Second, the astronauts “sit” on a tank using the same fan that pulls their business into the bag.

UWMS also relies on a fan system, as well as a funnel attached to a hose. But NASA says it worked diligently with female astronauts at the agency to properly design both the shape of the toilet and the “seat” of the toilet. “The funnel design was completely redesigned to better accommodate the female anatomy,” said McKinley. “And this is especially a concern when crew members are trying to do dual ops – when they’re both defecating and urinating at the same time.” According to McKinley, the women’s input has helped provide information on the shape, length and position of the funnel next to the toilet. The seat was also shaped to make it easier for female astronauts to go second when using the tube.

Another key feature of this toilet is that NASA engineers used special 3D printing technology to make various parts of the system from foreign metals such as inconal, algilloy and titanium. These are strong metals, which are needed so that the toilet can cope with the highly acidic solution used inside the system to treat urine. Urine can sometimes have solid deposits that get stuck in the toilet and build up over time, so NASA urinates with an acidic solution to break down the deposits before sending the urine into a on-board recycling system.

“It’s very strong that we use acid as a pretreatment,” said Jim Fuller, project manager at Collins Aerospace’s UWMS, which helped develop the toilet, during a press conference. “It’s so strong that there are only a handful of metals that NASA is aware it can capture this pretreatment over an extended period of time.” Although those metals are heavier, NASA developed a special 3D printing technology to make the parts it needed, making them lighter than usual. Perhaps the largest 3D printed part of the system is the titanium fan of the toilet, which is responsible for pulling out all the debris.

Image: NASA

One last big upgrade to this system is that everything is automated. Right now, astronauts need to turn on the switch to use the other toilets on the ISS, but UWMS The fan comes on automatically when the astronauts either remove the funnel from its cradle or lift the seat to the “commode”.

NASA has conducted some tests with ground toilets, showing them how well the suction works, focusing on different conditions. Now, the toilet is scheduled to take off at 9:38 a.m. ET on Thursday, on top of Northrop Grumman’s Entrance Rocket, from NASA’s Wall Lops flight facility in Virginia. Riding inside the Cygnus Cargo capsule of Northrop, once the capsule is connected to the ISS, the toilet will be retrieved by the astronauts. The astronauts will install UWMS next to a toilet already present on board and test it in the first three months. Eventually, the toilet will become another comfort room option for astronauts aboard the ISS.

In the meantime, NASA has even more space toilets to design. In June, the space agency began searching for toilet designs that astronauts could use while working on the moon. When it comes to all kinds of human spaceflight, it is important to consider the messy parts of sending people into space to achieve a simple mission. “When astronauts have to go, we want to let them go boldly,” Fuller said.