- The best time to view the bag is on November 24 between 5:30 PM and 5:41 PM
A toolbox dropped by NASA astronauts working on the ISS is now orbiting the Earth at 17,000 miles per hour and will be visible from the ground tomorrow as it flies over Britain.
The stray bag was accidentally lost by astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara while they were repairing a solar panel on the ISS earlier this month.
Astronomers on the ground have now seen the kit glittering like a star as it lies several minutes ahead of the ISS’ trajectory, according to The Telegraph.
The newspaper reported that Brits in the south have a decent chance of seeing the kit on Tuesday evening between 6.24pm and 6.34pm, provided the weather is good.
The best time to view the bag is on November 24 between 5:30 PM and 5:41 PM.
The bag was classified as space junk and given the ID number 58229/1998-067WC.
The toolbox will be visible from the ground tomorrow as it flies over Britain
The stray bag was accidentally lost by astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara while they were repairing a solar panel on the ISS earlier this month
Ms Moghbeli told mission control after the bag was spotted: ‘In the most unlikely event, Satoshi was actually… taking pictures of Mount Fuji and also took a nice photo of a lost item, yesterday’s nice crew lock bag. He wanted to see Mount Fuji, I think.”
The astronauts planned to remove a communications device called the radio frequency group, but were running out of time for their six-hour spacewalk.
They had removed some insulation to get a better view of the task ahead, and it is thought the bag floated away in the process.
According to astronomy website Earthsky.org, it should be possible to spot the toolkit on a clear night “with good binoculars.”
The satchel-sized bag was dropped by astronauts earlier this month as they performed remote maintenance work on the International Space Station (ISS)
It floated away before they noticed and is now orbiting the Earth a few minutes ahead of the ISS, traveling at about 17,000 miles per hour.
It said that as the bag loses altitude, it should appear in front of the ISS between two and four minutes. Mission controllers joked that the plane should have been fitted with Apple’s AirTag tracking device so it could be picked up from the crew in the next orbit.
If it resembles a bag lost by astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper in 2008, the cost of replacing it could be up to £82,000.
She lost hers when she cleaned a leaking grease gun while working on one of the space shuttle Endeavor’s solar panels. Some amateur astronomers even held “tool viewing parties” to keep track of the bag as it orbited the Earth for months.