Astronaut Christina Koch unveils 'new role’ after major toilet issue minutes into Artemis II mission
Christina Koch has proudly taken on the role of 'space plumber' after the Artemis II mission came into some unexpected toilet trouble shortly after take-off.
On Wednesday (1 April) a crew made up of NASA's Koch, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and the Canadian Space Agency's Jeremy Hansen, blasted off into space on a historic mission to the Moon.
The four astronauts are making history as the first crewed mission to the Moon in over 50 years, paving the way for a future lunar landing and laying the foundation to send a crew to Mars.
In the latest update, it's been confirmed that the group have made it to the far side of the Moon after leaving the Earth's orbit.
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NASA scientist Dr Lori Graze excitedly told reporters: "I am so excited to be able to tell you that for the first time since 1972 during Apollo 17, human beings have left Earth orbit."
And the crew themselves have also been giving updates, as a new video shows them bobbing around in zero gravity on Orion, with Koch dubbing herself the 'space plumber'.
This is because, with the help of mission control on the ground, the 47-year-old fixed the broken toilet issue that the crew faced minutes after launching.
Now, it's not exactly ideal blasting off for a ten-day trip to the Moon and then realising that your only toilet is out of order.
However, this is exactly the situation the crew found themselves in when they discovered that it's amber warning light was flashing and mission control said they'd need some time to fix it.
Koch told mission control: "The toilet shut down on its own, and I have a blinking amber fault light."
And as per Astronomy, it was out of use for an entire six hours, before thankfully, Koch came to the rescue with the help of NASA engineers on the ground.
Mission Control later confirmed: "Happy to report that toilet is go for use. We do recommend letting the system get to operating speed before donating fluid."
And now, in a fresh update, while communicating with Earth during a press conference the crew were asked 'who the plumber' was.
Koch laughed: "I'll take that one, I'm the space plumber. I'm proud to call myself the space plumber."
She added: "I like to say that it is probably the most important piece of equipment on board so we were all breathing a sigh of relief when it turned out to be just fine.
"It was just an issue of sitting for a long time and needing a little time to warm up, a priming issue. But we did originally think that there could have been potentially something fouling up the motor. Luckily we are all systems go."
While NASA explained on social media that 'mission specialists train for all roles so they can jump in wherever they’re needed. Sometimes that means fixing vital machinery, like the spacecraft toilet'.
Elsewhere in the update, Commander Wiseman praised the views as he gushed: "You can see the entire globe from pole to pole, you can see Africa, Europe, and if you looked closely, the northern lights.
"It was the most spectacular moment and it paused all four of us in our tracks."
Madison Burgess