Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman! a lost bag of space tools!
Two NASA astronauts were conducting a spacewalk and performing routine maintenance outside the International Space Station at the beginning of November when their tool bag drifted away from them and into the emptiness of space.
NASA confirmed the astronauts, Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara, “were able to complete one of the spacewalk’s two major objectives” but lost a bag of tools in the process.
- You might also like:
- Massive asteroid the size of the Empire State Building will have close encounter with Earth in 2029
- NASA telescope captures breathtaking image of stars being born
- India makes history as Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft successfully lands on the moon
“During the activity, one tool bag was inadvertently lost,” says NASA. “Flight controllers spotted the tool bag using external station cameras. The tools were not needed for the remainder of the spacewalk.”
European Space Agency reserve astronaut Meganne Christian shared footage of the moment the tool bag drifted away from Moghbeli. She says at the time, the bag was last spotted by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa as it orbited high above Mount Fuji.
Last seen by @Astro_Satoshi while floating over Mount Fuji 🗻 the ‘Orbital Police’ can confirm that the lost EVA gear is being tracked 🫡 https://t.co/wz4MITmAfM pic.twitter.com/eksfu9fPFw
— Dr Meganne Christian (@astro_meganne) November 5, 2023
NASA says the bag’s trajectory makes it unlikely to collide with the ISS and that the station itself and all of the crewmembers are safe.
According to earthsky.org, the bag is expected to remain in orbit for “several months” and will gradually descend into Earth’s atmosphere, where it will most likely disintegrate.
However, the bag is highly reflective, so it should become visible to skygazers from Earth.
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer and astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, confirmed the tool bag is officially being tracked as a new orbital object.
Interestingly, people on good ol’ Earth can monitor its location in real time via the satellite tracking site N2YO.com.
In 2008, a smaller tool bag became untethered and drifted away from astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper as she performed maintenance on the space station’s solar panels.
NASA says the bag is one of the largest items to ever go missing by a spacewalking astronaut and estimates the bag and its tools cost about $100,000.
Follow Channels and Categories