NASA is juggling some its spacewalk missions for the crew of the space shuttle Endeavor after a tool bag being used by astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper floated off yesterday.
Stefanyshyn-Piper and fellow astronaut Stephen Bowen were cleaning and lubing a joint on the wing of the space station’s solar panels yesterday when the untethered toolbag floated away. The mission was one of four planned space walks for the Endeavor’s journey to the orbiting space station. The bag is one of the largest pieces of debris ever lost during a space mission.
‘”What it boils down to is all it takes is one small mistake for a tether not to be hooked up quite correctly or to slip off, and that’s what happened here,” said lead spacewalk officer John Ray.
Stefanyshyn-Piper and Bowen finished the spacewalk in almost seven hours by sharing tools from Bowen’s bag. Ray noted that Stefanyshyn-Piper showed “real character and great discipline” by continuing on. She was the first woman to be assigned as lead spacewalker for a shuttle flight.
Despite my little hiccup, or major hiccup, I think we did a good job out there,” Stefanyshyn-Piper said after returning to the space station.
Flight controllers are considering having the two spacewalkers share Bowen’s pair of grease guns for the three remaining spacewalks on Thursday, Saturday and Monday. They could also use caulking guns meant for repairing the space shuttle. Another option is to have one spacewalker clean the joint while the other uses the grease gun to lubricate it.
For more than a year, the joint has been unable to automatically point the right-side solar wings toward the sun for maximum energy production.
Officials weren’t worried the bag would hit the space station or the docked space shuttle because by late Tuesday it already was 2 1/2 miles (4 kilometers) in front of the orbiting complex, said flight director Ginger Kerrick.
“It is definitely moving away with every orbit,” Kerrick said.
And thanks to the wonders of YouTube, you can check out the footage of the bag floating off and Stefanyshyn-Piper’s reaction.
Just take a little spin out in the shuttle to retreive it! 😉 (j/k)
You know… given the fact that you are trying to do an incredibly complex task with a balloon inflated over your fingers, and then grease them up with an exploded grease gun, I would have to say loosing a tool bag falls into the “Oh well” catagory. That’s why they have redundencies after all.
I say keep up the good work Heidemarie.