Written by Staff Writer
CNN
(CNN) — SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule is being shipped back to California as it undergoes tests to make sure the toilet doesn’t cause damage to the capsule.
Speaking at a news conference Friday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA officials said the Dragon’s toilets stopped working after launch.
“This means … the Crew Dragon capsule is not configured as it’s supposed to be and we have to correct that,” said Bob Cabana, who heads NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “We’ll have a conversation with SpaceX to go through a full complete checklist.”
The flight commode required replacing after Tuesday’s launch, officials said. But Cabana said NASA does not have all the specifications needed for the toilets yet.
Sara Joyce, NASA’s director of flight crew operations, said they don’t have the full analysis completed on the capsule yet.
“We are somewhat behind schedule because of this intermittent issue with our commode,” she said.
By way of comparison, the newer International Space Station’s commodes needed replacing after some docking failures.
“It is an all-new machine that we feel is a great technology and while it did not work the way we expected it to be performed, we were able to keep it functioning and return it to orbit safely,” she said.
