Lost in Space: Astronauts Misplace Tool Bag During Historic Spacewalk

CNN reports that during their first spacewalk on November 1, NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara experienced an unfortunate incident where their tool bag was lost. The bag is currently floating in space and will remain there for the next few months until it disintegrates in the Earth’s atmosphere.

The spacewalk was intended to complete work on the station’s solar panels, which track the sun. The pair did not have time to remove and store the communications electronics box that must be completed during the upcoming spacewalk. To use their time, the couple made an estimate of how the work could be done.

According to the space agency, the pair completed their maintenance work outside the International Space Station (ISS) in six hours and 42 minutes.

NASA has said that during this nearly seven-hour mission, the tool bag was “lost.” Fortunately, the tools weren’t necessary for their remaining missions on the space station. With the help of external cameras on the ISS (International Space Station), air traffic controllers were able to detect the bag, CNN reported.

“Mission Control analyzed the trajectory of the bag and determined that the risk of re-contact with the station is low and that the crew and the space station are safe without any action,” NASA said on its official blog.

The toolkit is now moving ahead of the ISS and may be visible from Earth with binoculars before it disintegrates, EarthSky, a website that follows cosmic events, said.

This is not the first time an astronaut has lost tools in space, CNN reported. Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper’s bag floated away while she was cleaning and lubricating gears in a faulty rotary joint in 2008. In 2006, on a spacewalk, astronauts Piers Sellers and Michael Fossum lost a 14-inch splint while testing a method for repairing the space shuttle. .

Space debris or debris like these objects are man-made materials that orbit the Earth but are no longer functional. They can be anything from a small piece of paint to parts discarded during rocket launches.

As of September 2023, the European Space Agency estimates that 35,290 objects were tracked and cataloged by various space surveillance networks, and the total mass of objects orbiting the Earth was more than 11,000 tons, reports CNN.