During a Thursday spacewalk outside of the International Space Station, NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara were tasked with replacing a bearing of an assembly allowing the station's solar arrays to stay pointed at the Sun.
But as they were getting to work, the pair "inadvertently lost" a "tool bag" in an "orbital oopsy," according to aFortunately, the tools "were not needed for the remainder of the spacewalk," allowing the two astronauts to return back inside. More importantly, the bag's trajectory meant it was unlikely to "recontact" — or smack into — the space station, meaning the accident hopefully won't be a big deal.It's far from the first time astronauts have lost track of tools in space. Back in 1965, NASA astronaut Ed White infamouslyduring a spacewalk outside of his Gemini 4 spacecraft.
In some cases, tools are even intentionally jettisoned. Case in point, earlier this year, Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin intentionally let a sizeable bundle of discarded hardware drift off into space.The problem, of course, is that not every piece of space debris will stay out of the way of future space travelers.
While the latest space "snafu" likely won't pose any threat to the astronauts currently stationed on board the ISS, thatthere aren't any risks associated with losing track of a bolt or an entire tool bag during the next spacewalk.
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