Spacewalker loses toolbag while fixing ISS's Solar Wing

Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, a 45-years-old spacewalking astronaut accidently let go of her tool bag when she was about to start fixing the jammed joint on the ISS's right solar wing.

For more than a year, the jammed joint has been unable to point the solar wing towards the sun for maximum energy production.

The tool bag has been reported to one of the biggest item to be lost. Piper explains that her grease gun exploded, getting the dark grey stuff all over the camera and her gloves. While she was wiping everything off, the white, backpack-size bag slipped out of her grip, and she lost her tool.

Fortunately, losing the bag was not a big problem. Piper's fellow spacewalker Stephen Bowen's tool bag had another set of grease gun, putty knives and terry-cloth mitts to wipe away metal grit from the joint. Piper and Bowen were able to finish the task by sharing tools. It took them almost seven hours to complete the job.

"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 director Ginger Kerrick said the bag posed no hazard to the spacecraft. The bag was already 2½ miles in front of the shuttle-station complex. “It’s well on its way away from us,” she assured reporters.

NASA was not sure how the bag got loose; it should have been tethered to a larger equipment bag. Another unknown: why the grease gun discharged.

“It is a human endeavor. Mistakes can happen. Equipment can fail,” said John Ray, the lead spacewalk officer in Mission Control. He noted that Stefanyshyn-Piper showed “real character and great discipline” by continuing on and doing a fine job for the rest of the spacewalk. She was the first woman to be assigned as lead spacewalker for a shuttle flight.