In space no one can hear you scream – even when your bag drifts off towards the stars.It’s humiliating enough when you drop your handbag on the high street. It is particularly embarrassing when you’re the first woman to be given the job as lead space walker on a shuttle flight, and your bag is a tool kit.

Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper was carrying out an unprecedented attempt to clean up a gummed-up joint on the International Space Station’s solar panel when the grease gun inside her tool bag exploded, getting grey goo all over her camera and her gloves. As she cleaned herself up, the backpack-sized bag slipped out of her grip and she was forced to watch as all her tools floated off.

“Oh, great,” she mumbled as the reality of the situation hit home and the jokes about handbags and lipsticks lost in space loomed. It was one of the largest items to be lost by a space walker. Luckily, Stephen Bowen, carrying out the space walk with Ms Stefanyshyn-Piper, had his own tool bag with another grease gun and putty knife. Sharing Mr Bowen’s tools, the astronauts finished the job in seven hours.

“Despite my little hiccup, or major hiccup, I think we did a good job out there,” Ms Stefanyshyn-Piper said after returning to the space station.

Flight controllers were assessing the impact the lost bag would have on the next three planned space walks.

Earlier in their space walk the astronauts had spotted a screw floating by, but were too far away to catch it.

“I have no idea where it came from,” Ms Stefanyshyn-Piper told Mission Control. She knew it hadn’t come from her tool bag because at that point she still had a firm grip on it.

Mission Control said the screw was not considered a serious hazard, but did not immediately elaborate on the missing tool bag. Flight controllers were tracking its location in orbit.

The lost bag marred what had been a near-flawless mission by the space shuttle Endeavour and its seven-member crew.

Cleaning the jammed joint was expected to be such a difficult and greasy job that it was to take up much of all four space walks. For more than a year the joint has been unable to point the right-side solar wings automatically toward the Sun for maximum energy production.

It is located near the extreme reaches of the outpost 350km above the Earth, and the spacewalkers had 25m safety tethers to keep them connected to the mother ship at all times. Nasa suspects a lack of lubrication caused the massive joint to break down. Besides scraping and wiping away the grit and applying grease, the astronauts will replace the bearings.

As the action unfolded outside, the astronauts inside the shuttle-station complex started unloading the gear inside a huge trunk that was brought up by Endeavour. The most important item – and one of the first things to be hooked up – is a recycling system that will convert astronauts’ urine and sweat into drinking water. It is essential if Nasa is to double the size of the space sation crew to six next June.

Endeavour also delivered an extra bathroom, kitchenette, two bedrooms, an exercise machine and refrigerator.

Times Recommends

• No apology for Germany’s own Nazi victims
• Intricate web of fear and hope tying down deal
• Victims remembered a year after Mumbai attacks