Lost in space: one toolbox
Updated on 19 November 2008
A US astronaut is left red-faced after she drops her toolbox on a spacewalk - within hours it had floated more than two miles away.
Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper accidently let go of the bag while carrying out repair work outside the International Space Station yesterday.
Stefanyshyn-Piper was heard to say: "Oh, great. You see it?"
Crewmates monitoring the spacewalk from inside the station spied the bag drifting past the orbital outpost, which flies 212 miles above Earth.
The bag contained two grease guns, scrapers and other equipment needed to begin fixing a 10-foot-wide rotary joint that positions the station's solar wing panels toward the sun for power.
Stefanyshyn-Piper borrowed tools from her spacewalking partner Stephen Bowen to finish the repair work on the joint before heading back into the station's airlock, after a seven hour spacewalk.
By late yesterday, the bag was already more than two miles in front of the shuttle-station complex.
