Canadarm

Canadarm

Although Canada has been involved with the space race since the beginning, nothing has made our national pride glow like watching the space shuttles and seeing the big letters CANADA written across the Canadarm.

The Canadarm was fist launched into space on November 13, 1981 as part of Columbia. During that mission, the Canadarm successfully flexed its muscles and secured its position in the future of space travel.

It was developed by Spar Aerospace with the National Research Council and modelled after the human arm. Otherwise known as a Remote Manipulator System, it could lift 30 tonnes in space while being monitored and operated from the indoor shuttle flight deck.

The Canadarm is about to introduce its new and improved sibling. Back in 1987, when documents were signed between countries to work towards a permanently manned Space Station, Canada agreed to provide a Mobile Servicing System (MSS). The MSS will be an integral part of the Space Station from the beginning, it will be used in the assembly, maintenance and servicing of the Station. In return, Canadians will be able to have full use of the Station and will assist with its management.

Canadian Astronaut Julie Payette will be operating the new arm on its first mission and explains how in the following excerpt from a NASA Preflight Interview:

"This arm flies like an airplane, it's a six-dimension arm where you can rotate the tip of the arm, so you can translate that tip along the cargo bay of the shuttle and up the stack of the International Space Station. It is an absolute joy to fly. Right after the space walk is complete is when I am timelined in the flight to go on the controls of the Canadarm, as we call it in Canada, or the remote manipulator system. I will use the camera, which is mounted at the end of the tip of the arm, to survey all the targets that are placed on the Space Station, the space vision target. I survey them to see if they're in good shape, any problems with them, if they've been scratched, and if there are bubbles in the material.

The reason why the people from the space vision system program require that very thorough survey of every single target on the Space Station is that each target will be used on the next flight to manipulate and dock pieces of equipment together. When the operator of the arm will be blind with respect to the work site, he won't be able to see the interface, so the space vision system becomes critical. And because the targets are critical to the operation of the space vision system, we want to make sure they are in good shape before we use them operationally and actually have several tons of equipment coming in contact with the Space Station."

"The Canadian contribution to the International Space Station, the hardware contribution, is a small piece with respect to the big structure, but an essential one. Actually, the assembly and maintenance of the International Space Station