All Candians on Blogstream should be very proud of The Canadian Space Agency's contribution to the International Space Station.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. --- Astronauts bound for orbit this week will dabble in science fiction, assembling a " monstrous" two-armed space station robot that will rise like Frankenstein from its transport bed. Putting together Dextre, the robot, will be one of the main jobs for the seven Endeavour astronauts, who are scheduled to blast off 11:28 p.m. Pacific Monday, less than three weeks after the last shuttle flight.
They are also delivering the first piece of Japan's massive Kibo space station lab, a float-in closet for storing tools, experiments and spare parts. For the first time, each of the five major international space station partners will own a piece of the real estate. At 16 days, the mission will be NASA's longest space station trip and will include five spacewalks, the most performed while a shuttle is docked there. Three of those spacewalks will feature Dextre, which is sure to steal the show.
With 11 foot arms, a shoulder span of nearly 8 feet and a height of 12 feet, the Canadian Space Agency's Dextre -- short for dexterous and pronounced like Dexter --- is more than a little intimidating, at least for astronaut Garrett Reisman. " Now I wouldn't go so far as to say that we are worried it's going to go run amok and take over the space station or turn evil or anything because we all know how its operated and it doesn't have a lot of its own intelligence," Reisman said.
" But I'll tell you something, He's enormous and to see him with his giant arms, its a little scary. It's a little monstrous, it is." Dextre will be flying up aboard Endeavour in pieces, and it will be to a team of spacewalking astronauts to assemble the 3,400 pound robot and attach it to the outside of the space station. That job will fall to Reisman, Michael Foreman and Richard Linnehan. " I feel kind of like dad on Christmas Eve, you know, opening up this present and trying to put it together for the son or daughter and going, Whoa, what have I gotten myself into here with this some assembly required part of the space station." Foreman said.
Reisman, who will be moving into the space station, can't wait to see Dextre rise from its shuttle transport pallet, rotating up almost like its Frankenstein's monster coming alive. In reality there's nothing sinister about Dextre. The robot, in fact, was once in the running to be the Hubble Space Telescope's savior. Following the 2003 Columbia disaster, NASA canceled the last remaining Hubble repair mission by shuttle astronauts because of safety concerns, and considered sending Dextre up to do the job. The shuttle flight was restored after a change at NASA's helm, and Dextre went back to being a space station assistant.
Dextre, which cost more than $200 million, was created by the same Canadian team that built the space shuttle and space station robot arms. Equipped with a tool holster, Dextre is designed to assist spacewalking astronauts and, ultimately, to take over some of their dangerous outdoor work. Dextre can pivot at the waist, and has seven joints per arm. It's hands, or grippers, have built in socket wrenches, cameras and lights. Only one arm is designed to move at a time to keep the robot stable and avoid a two-arm collision.
