Thursday, November 20, 2008

Lost in Space



On November 18,2008,US space shuttle Endeavour Mission Specialist Heide Stefanyshyn-Piperon lost the tool bag.Stefanyshyn-Piper was working outside the space station Tuesday with crewmate Steve Bowen on the first of four spacewalks to clean grit out of a damaged solar gear and add lubrication in a bid to restore its health. The gear is used to turn the space station's starboard solar arrays like a paddlewheel so they always face the sun.

It was happened while preparing for that greasy job that Stefanyshyn-Piper opened her tool bag and found it full of sticky gray grease.she dishearteningly told "the grease was everywhere in the tool bag,Well not everywhere, but....everywhere,"she said of the grease. "It was just a continuous ooze."

It is the largest tool bag kit lost in first time.the weight of the tool bag kit is 30-pound (13-kg).Previous lost property includes a 14in spatula dropped in 2006 by the British-born astronaut Piers Sellers, In September 2006, astronaut Joe Tanner,lost bolt,spring and washer during his space walk.

At last Endeavour astronauts and spacewalk planners have come up with an idea to make up for the lost tool bag by preparing terry cloth-like wipes so spacewalkers won't get bogged down by sharing the remaining grease guns during the next few spacewalks.

Heide Stefanyshyn Piperon said in an interview “You’re not going to see us lose another bag. We’re going to double- and triple-check everything from here on out,” The next spacewalk is Thursday; Stefanyshyn-Piper will venture back out of the international space station for more work on a jammed joint at the space station that controls some of the solar wings.

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