Chart-topping band Glass Animals have joked that their visit to Nasa two years ago may have caused the trouble with the toilet used by astronauts on the Artemis II mission.

No humans have ever been further from home than the four Artemis crew members were on Monday, as they conducted a dramatic lunar fly-by.

But before that, the astronauts found there was still one piece of technology that was having some issues – the Orion space capsule’s toilet.

In a tongue-in-cheek post to Instagram, Glass Animals – best known for their 2020 sleeper-hit Heat Waves – claimed culpability for the lunar lavatory malfunctions.

In the video, the Oxford band showed a visit they had made to Nasa headquarters at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida – during which the band sat in the Orion space capsule.

The band joked they had snuck in a vial of their own tears to promote their single A Tear in Space, and pretended to hide them in the capsule.

But lead singer Dave Bayley “actually lost” the vial of tears in the capsule and “didn’t tell anyone from Nasa”.

Bayley is then seen in the video whispering: “They’re gone.”

The crew of the Artemis II didn’t seem too miffed by Glass Animal’s confession, even starting their seventh day in space by listening to the band’s 2019 collaboration with rapper Denzel Curry, Tokyo Drifting.

Reacting to the trailblazing astronauts vibing to their song, the band said on Instagram: “Omg… I love u guys.”

“Me and my cousins and my mom made popcorn and watched the launch. You guys are inspiring us all down here on Earth,” their comment read.

“Ps sorry to hear about the toilet but glad it is fixed,” they jokingly added.

After launching from Earth on 1 April , the four astronauts aboard the Artemis II mission’s Orion capsule had some intermittent issues with their toilet.

But the lavatory issues proved to just be a small inconvenience as the crew made history, travelling further from Earth than any other human had done before.

The four astronauts completed their mission around the Moon on Tuesday and are expected to splashdown off the coast of San Diego at around 20:00 Friday US EDT (01:00 BST on Saturday).

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