Was the Artemis II Toilet 3D-Printed in Titanium? What We Really Know

The Artemis II mission launched on April 1, carrying four astronauts on the first crewed flight around the Moon in more than half a century. On board was the Universal Waste Management System (UWMS), the first functional toilet to travel on a lunar mission. Since then, it has often been described as a “3D-printed titanium” toilet. But how accurate is that claim?

The UWMS is not a new system. Collins Aerospace began developing it in 2015 under a $30 million NASA contract, and an initial version was delivered to the International Space Station in 2020 for testing. The version flown aboard the Orion capsule on Artemis II is a more compact adaptation of that original design, optimized for deep space missions.

The toilet system installed on the ISS (Photo Credits: NASA).

Where 3D Printing Comes In

In September 2020, just days before the UWMS was sent to the ISS, NASA stated on its official Tumblr that the system included “a 3D-printed titanium cover for its dual fan separator.” This component, known as the Dual Fan Separator (DFS), is the mechanical core of the UWMS. It generates the airflow that, in microgravity, moves waste toward the collection containers. What NASA identified as 3D-printed was the cover of this component, not the entire toilet.