For this year's Canada Day, let's take a moment to acknowledge the best known and longest serving Canadian member of the space program. Sorry, it’s not Chris Hadfield, I refer of course to the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System: more popularly known as the Canadarm.
Commissioned from Spar Aerospace by the Canadian government as part of an agreement with NASA to support the shuttle program, the Canadarm was first deployed from the space shuttle Columbia on November 13, 1981. The 15.2 meter long robotic arm featured a unique cable-based "end effector" (hand, if you're not an engineer) that allowed the Canadarm to effectively and easily grip objects in zero gravity.
The Canadarm proved to be an incredibly useful and versatile addition to the shuttle, and NASA requested a matching system for each of their new space shuttles. The various models served with distinction for 30 years, finally retiring* in 2011 after 90 missions.
The Canadarm2 was already in place on the International Space Station at that point** - the improved version of the remote manipulator, designed and built by Brampton's MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates, had entered service in 2001 after being installed on the ISS with the help of Chris Hadfield and the station’s first generation Canadarm.
The new version of the arm was larger, longer and stronger, with the ability to handle larger payloads, and was constructed so that it could be maintained and updated in orbit - unlike its predecessors, the Canadarm2 would remain in space for its entire service life.
The next addition to Canada’s catalogue of robotic remotes was Dextre, the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator***. Also built by MDA, Dextre is 3.70 meters tall, is equipped with two 3.5 meter long arms, each with seven joints for extreme flexibility, and can be mounted on the end of the Canadarm2. Dextre first saw duty in February of 2011, allowing the crew of the ISS to perform a wide variety of maintenance tasks on the exterior of the station without the need to go into space.
The Canadarm, Canadarm2 and Dextre are the tools of the future: extensions of humanity that enhance and expand the ability of astronauts to interact with their environment, extensions that will undoubtedly become more and more autonomous over time.
I’d like to think that they're also the precursors to a long legacy of independent Canadian-created robotic space explorers. Imagine: centuries from now, on a distant planet, a mobile human-form AI stands surrounded by curious lifeforms. The scarlet light of an alien sun illuminates a chipped and scratched maple leaf etched into the android's carbon fibre shoulder.
One of the aliens raises a secondary pedipalp and gestures at the flag.
>>>INQUIRY: WHAT IS SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS ICON?<<<
A metallic face creases into a nostalgic smile.
“That is the symbol of Canada, my home and native land. Hmmm…how to explain Canada...okay, let’s start with hockey...”
- Sid
* Because there were multiple models, the retiring Canadarms found a variety of homes for their golden years: one at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa, another at the National Air and Space Museum in Virginia, one remained in orbit, and one is on display as part of the Atlantis shuttle display at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida - the traditional destination of retiring Canadians. (Florida, that is, not the Kennedy Space Centre.) The fifth Canadarm was lost in the 1986 Challenger accident.
** The process of transferring cargo from one Canadarm to the other became known as the "Canadian Handshake".
*** I have always thought that Dextre should have been named Waldo, after the character in the Robert A. Heinlein story of the same name, who lived on a space station and had developed a wide range of remote manipulators to compensate for his myasthenia gravis, but apparently someone has the name under copyright.
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