Official News page 6

REAL LIFE NEWS: SPACE TOOL KIT BURNS UP

by Hazed

Last November, an astronaut working on the ISS dropped a tool kit. It floated away and was lost. Whoops - how clumsy! Now it's finally been destroyed, burned up in the Earth's atmosphere, after eight months in orbit.

The bag, which contained scrapers, wipes and a pair of greaseguns, was lost by Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper during the space shuttle Endeavour's STS-126 mission. She'd been working on one of the ISS's solar arrays when she let go of the tool kit and it drifted away. NASA forecast at the time that it would take about six months to reenter the atmosphere and burn up, but it turned out to take a bit longer than that.

While it was in orbit, the tool bag was tracked by web sites which provide orbital data on spacecrafts and satellite, and at least one amateur astronomer managed to video the bag crossing the night sky. Now, NASA have confirmed that its anticipated reentry has happened and its burnt up.

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