In good humour, the opticians, Specsavers, have launched a pair of glasses into space in a bid to provide the NASA team with glasses to ensure the mishap of the “lost tools” doesn’t happen again.
Britons have been star-gazing in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the missing tool kit as it floated across the night skies – now they will need to look out for the glasses too.
This stunt follows the NASA astronauts who fumbled a toolbag while fixing a solar panel on the International Space Station earlier this month before watching it float away.
A representative for Specsavers said: “We go to infinity and beyond to help everyone with their vision, and when we say everyone, we mean everyone, no matter where they are.”
The frames were launched into space in the afternoon from Sheffield on November 21.
Carried by a huge stratospheric balloon filled with hydrogen, the glasses were lifted to around 110,000 feet above the Earth in near space.
Near space refers to the region between 20–100 kilometres above Earth’s surface, sitting above the altitude flown by most aircraft, but below the orbit of satellites.
The balloon expanded the higher it travelled, so at peak altitude, it was roughly the height of Buckingham Palace and could withstand freezing temperatures.
When Specsavers and the Space marketing agency, Sent Into Space, saw the ISS mishap, they “wanted to step in and help out”.
Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara accidentally fumbled the toolbag while fixing a solar panel on the International Space Station (ISS) earlier this month and it was spotted using external station cameras.
Astronomers from the Virtual Telescope Project on the ground have since spotted the bag orbiting the planet a few minutes ahead of the ISS.
Experts say people should be able to see the bag using binoculars or a telescope in the coming days and the best time to look for it will be on November 24, between 5.30pm and 5.41pm.
The bag has been classified as space junk and given the ID number 58229/1998-067WC.
