NASA Astronauts Accidentally Drop Equipment Bag in Space: What Happened and What’s the Risk?

KOMPAS.com – There was an interesting incident when NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara carried out a spacewalk or walk outside the International Space Station (ISS) on November 1.

While doing maintenance work outside the ISS, they accidentally dropped a bag of equipment in space.

Also read: Photographer on Earth Portrait of Two Astronauts Doing a Spacewalk, What’s It Like?

Quoting CNN, Tuesday (11/14/2023) NASA said that during the hours-long mission, an equipment bag slipped and was “lost,” and flight controllers saw it using the ISS’s external camera.

Luckily, those tools weren’t needed for their next assignment.

Not a threat

Apart from that, there is no potential danger that threatens the crew and the space station.

According to IFL Science, dropping something on Earth and in outer space is certainly different. Any object lost in low Earth orbit is a potential hazard if it collides with something moving.

“The control center analyzed the bag’s trajectory and determined that the risk of re-contact with the station was low. The crew on board and the ISS were in safe condition and no action was required,” NASA wrote on its official website.

This isn’t too surprising. A bag of tools is far less likely to cause damage than the fragments of an exploded satellite.

The reason is that, unlike satellite debris, no force is exerted on the bag. The bag has even been included in the catalog of known artificial objects in outer space

According to EarthSky, a website that tracks cosmic events, the equipment bag is currently orbiting Earth ahead of the ISS, and could potentially be visible from Earth with binoculars for the next few months until it disintegrates in our planet’s atmosphere.

Also read: Suspenseful, Female Astronaut’s Helmet Damaged During Spacewalk on the ISS

Not the first time

This is not the first time this bag has fallen. At least half a dozen objects have been dropped during space travel.

Perhaps the most famous was the disappearance of a spatula in 2006. This 14-inch spatula belonging to astronauts Piers Sellers and Michael Fossum was lost while testing a space shuttle repair method.

As a result, the space spatula spiraled down and burned up over the Atlantic Ocean four months later and most of the dropped objects suffered the same fate.

However, there is more to look out for than that tool bag.

By September 2023, the European Space Agency estimates there will be 35,290 defunct objects in Earth orbit. Space debris with a total object mass of 11,000 tons has the potential to cause danger.

Also read: The Tense Story Behind the History of the First Cosmonaut to Perform a Spacewalk

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2023-11-15 13:02:00
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