Houston, we have an oopsie – astronauts lose tool bag in space

Nasa astronaut Loral O'Hara — Nasa astronaut Loral O’Hara during last week’s spacewalk – during which a tool bag went rogue (Picture: Nasa Johnson/SWNS)

Everybody makes mistakes at work, but luckily for most of us, they aren’t broadcast widely.

Unfortunately for astronauts on the International Space Station, that isn’t the case, and so the case of the lost tool bag is now making headlines across the globe.

During a spacewalk last Thursday, Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara spent six hours and 42 minutes outside the ISS working on maintenance, including fixing a solar power array.

However, while preparing to work on a communications electronics box, flight controllers spotted a tool bag spinning off into space.

An assessment was quickly made by Nasa to work out whether the kit would smash into the space station. However, it was deemed low risk and left to drift away into space.

Nasa has not revealed who may have been in charge of the tool bag.

Jasmin Moghbeli and O'Hara on board the ISS — Jasmin Moghbeli and O’Hara on board the ISS (Picture: Nasa Johnson/SWNS)

In addition, the astronaut’s clunky EMUs (extravehicular mobility units) are not conducive for quick and nimble movements to catch anything that goes astray.

Moghbeli at work during the spacewalk (Picture: Nasa Johnson/SWNS)

The duo lifted some multilayer insulation to make a better assessment of how to approach the job before replacing the insulation and deferring the task to a future spacewalk.

Have any other objects ever been lost in space?

The floating tool bag isn’t the first thing to be dropped by astronauts in space – in fact, it isn’t even the first tool bag orbiting the planet.

Other objects accidentally lost by astronauts during space walks include a camera, a glove, pliers and the world’s most famous spatula.

Dropped in 2006 by Piers Sellers, it was quickly nicknamed ‘spatsat’, it burned up in the atmosphere four months later.

‘During the activity, one tool bag was inadvertently lost,’ said Nasa spokesperson Mark Garcia. ‘Flight controllers spotted the tool bag using external station cameras.

‘The tools were not needed for the remainder of the spacewalk. Mission Control analysed the bag’s trajectory and determined that risk of recontacting the station is low and that the onboard crew and space station are safe with no action required.’