Thursday, 16 November 2023

Two-Patch Log Cabin

 


On the first of November, astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O'Hara spent almost seven hours outside of the international space station, performing maintenance on the solar arrays. At some point during their extra-vehicular activity, a large tool bag they were using floated away from the space station and was lost. I suppose this sort of thing happens in space quite frequently. On Earth, when we momentarily set something down, gravity generally keeps it where we put it. The bag in question isn’t really “lost.” Flight controllers know exactly where it is, and where it’s going to be. They’ve determined the tools it carries aren’t irreplaceable, and the bag itself poses no threat to the station or its occupants. At the moment, the missing tool bag is in orbit a bit ahead of the station. It can be spotted with a decent pair of binoculars for at least the next couple of months, until its orbit decays and it burns up in Earth’s atmosphere.

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