A view from cameras on board the Orion spacecraft as it climbs to orbit, powered by the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket following a 6:35 p.m. EDT liftoff on April 1, 2026. Included is the jettison of the solid rocket boosters that propelled Orion for the first two minutes of flight, and the jettison of the spacecraft adapter jettison panels, which protect the spacecraft's solar array wings during ascent.

From air pressure to rocket thrust, Orion faces many forces in flight—and engineers like Quyen Jones in the Orion Mission Evaluation Room track them all. After a clean launch and spot‑on TLI burn, her team is excited to see data match years of testing on Artemis II.

When astronauts first made their way to the moon, they did so without a toilet. The Apollo program’s system of plastic bags and funnels was so unwieldy and messy that crew members found it “objectionable” and “distasteful,” according to a subsequent NASA report. But now, more than a half century since the last crewed lunar voyages and their toilet troubles, the four astronauts of NASA’s Artemis II mission will take flight with a more commodious bathroom in tow.

The space agency’s Universal Waste Management System (UWMS)—more colloquially called just “the toilet”—was created to solve longstanding potty problems faced by astronauts and to offer a more familiar bathroom experience on the final frontier. Lunar astronauts will now be spoiled by amenities that include handles to help them stay steady in microgravity, a system that can handle both urine and feces simultaneously, urine-collection devices that work for both male and female astronauts, and even a door for the helpful illusion of privacy in a cramped crew capsule.

The new design is more than a decade in the making. Space infrastructure company Collins Aerospace first entered into a contract with NASA to develop the project in 2015. In that time, project scientists have overcome fundamental issues with past space toilets while imagining and meeting future needs so that the same system used by Artemis II astronauts could be adapted for moon and Mars missions in decades to come.

"We can see the Moon out of the docking hatch right now. It's a beautiful sight."

Flight day 3 is in the books, and our NASA Artemis II crew is now closer to the Moon than to Earth. Check out highlights from our lunar mission. What’s been your favorite moment so far?

How do you keep organ chips “alive” in deep space?

Custom equipment inside Orion automatically controls temperature and feeds the AVATAR organ chips throughout the Artemis II mission.

Learn more about AVATAR: go.nasa.gov/4sWkqeA

The toilet broke again. Someone call the space plumber.

Mission Control Houston believes that a frozen vent is to blame, and have oriented Integrity so that the sun will warm this vent & melt the blockage.

This is not diminishing the Artemis II crew's views of Earth however. Commander astro Reid Wiseman: "It's just a truly remarkable sight".

When the toilet is out-of-action, the crew can make use of Collapsible Contingency Urinals (CCUs).

‍TOILET UPDATE: It is now available again.

Following ~2 hours of pointing the vent at the sun, whatever was blocking it appears to have melted, and a waste dump was conducted.

The crew can now dump the contents of their Contingency Urinals as required.

Not bad for a first day in space.

Yesterday, as they became closer to the Moon than the Earth, Commander Reid Wiseman and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen reflected on the feeling of the translunar injection burn. Rise, the zero-gravity indicator, hung out for the conversation as well.

Artemis II crew, we hear you loud and clear.

Inside Mission Control, engineers like Ami Killeen in the Orion Mission Evaluation Room are keeping a close eye on Orion’s communication systems, keeping us seamlessly connected with the crew as they continue their journey toward the Moon.

Data, delivered at the speed of light. 💫

Orion’s Artemis II Optical Communications System (O2O) downlinked more than 100 gigabytes of data using laser communications. This image is just one of the many files transmitted. Learn more about O2O: go.nasa.gov/3O4FmRi