NASA astronauts, including Long Island's Jasmin Moghbeli, lose tool bag in space
In a galaxy altogether not too far away, a white satchel-like tool bag drifts aimlessly through space after it slipped away from a Long Island-based astronaut and her colleague during the first all-female spacewalk.
The "lost in space" moment came on Nov. 1, when NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli of Baldwin and Loral O’Hara of Massachusetts were performing maintenance on the International Space Station and "inadvertently" lost the crew lock bag, NASA announced on its internal blog.
"Flight controllers spotted the tool bag using external station cameras," NASA said. "The tools were not needed for the remainder of the spacewalk. Mission Control analyzed 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."
NASA did not respond to questions about the contents of the bag or its cost.
Stephen Lawrence, Hofstra professor of physics and astronomy, said while screws, nuts and bolts are occasionally lost during repair work, it's rare for something the size of a tool bag to drift away.
"It's unusual. They're well trained to follow procedures and things are magnetized so that they're less likely to float off," Lawrence said. "But accidents happen."
Astronauts Loral O’Hara, left, and Jasmin Moghbeli work inside the Quest airlock. Credit: NASA
Moghbeli, a lieutenant colonel, is the commander of the SpaceX Crew-7 that arrived at the International Space Station in late August for a six-month mission that includes a host of science experiments, ranging from the effects of space on human physiology to the impact of microbes astronauts encounter in space travel.
A graduate of Lenox Elementary School and Baldwin High School, Moghbeli has spoken extensively of her love for science and exploration.
"I still wake up and go, ‘I can’t believe that I’m actually a NASA astronaut,’ ” Moghbeli told Newsday in March while visiting with students at Lenox Elementary.
The size of a small suitcase, the bag, now classified as space junk, is expected to harmlessly disintegrate when it reaches an altitude of around 70 miles over Earth, projected around March 2024, experts said. The bag was last seen floating over Mount Fuji by a Japanese astronaut.
The NASA toolbox valued at $100,000, floating in orbit some 200 miles above Earth, will eventually fall back to Earth and burn up on reentry. Credit: NASA
While too dim to be visible to the naked eye, skywatchers can potentially catch a glimpse of the tool bag, which has a visual magnitude of 6 — slightly less bright than Uranus — with binoculars, according to the website EarthSky.
To track the bag, observers should first locate the Space Station, which is the third-brightest object in the night sky and looks similar to a fast-moving plane, Lawrence said. The Space Station can be located using the agency’s Spot the Station tool.
"It is easily visible when it's going overhead," Lawrence said of the Space Station. "It doesn't have any blinking lights on it. And that's one way that you can tell it from a plane."
The bag will be orbiting Earth about 12 minutes before the Space Station, Lawrence said.
It's not the first time astronauts have lost items — including a tool bag — in space. Among the other misplaced items were a pair of gloves, pliers, a camera and a spatula.
Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.
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