SpaceX fixing the leaky loo before blast off

SpaceX's Inspiration4 capsule is set to take off on Sunday, which will be the private company's fourth launch.

Astronauts are often asked about how they go to the loo in space, but here's another question - what happens if the loo leaks?!

Well, the toilet onboard SpaceX's Inspiration4 capsule has done just that and is having to be fixed before it is launched again on Sunday.

During the company's first private flight last month, a tube attached to the spacecraft's loo became unstuck, leading to its contents being sprayed around a small compartment of the capsule.

Luckily, it didn't reach the passengers or crew so nobody had an unpleasant sprinkling!

In fact, no one on board noticed the problem until they landed back on Earth three days later.

"We didn't really even notice it, the crew didn't even notice it, until we got back," SpaceX official Bill Gerstenmaier said on Monday.

"When we got the vehicle back, we looked under the floor and saw the fact that there was contamination underneath the floor of Inspiration4."

What happened to the leaky loo?

During the flight, the tube became unglued, and a mechanical issue with a fan attached to the toilet, which drags the waste away from the loo, had set off an alarm on board.

The crew were unsure what was causing the alert, and went through a number of safety checks to make sure it wasn't anything serious.

The dragon capsule is currently docked with the International Space Station

They have not revealed how they solved the issue during the flight but when engineers opened the compartment on land, they noticed some puddles of pee!

SpaceX's billionaire owner Elon Musk said he was making sure the toilets were getting an upgrade before Sunday's launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

They say the tube is now being welded on (joined by melting the metal to another part) rather than relying on the less permanent glue option.

William Gerstenmaier, Vice President of Mission Assurance at SpaceX, has said they will conduct thorough checks on the Dragon capsule to make sure the leak hasn't caused any further damage that could put the astronauts at risk on their journey back to Earth in November.