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Canadarm Company Bidding on Hubble Repair

Posted by michael on from the give-them-a-hand dept.

mhotchin writes "The Globe and Mail says that NASA has evaluated all the submissions for a robot repair mission to Hubble, and the only bid requested is from the Canadian company that developed the Canadarm. It appears they would copy the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator ('Dexter'), developed for ISS, as the main unit for the repairs."

4 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. Re:NASA outsourcing? by merdark · · Score: 4, Informative

    NASA always out sourced a bit. This company made bot h the shuttle arm, and the ISS arm, it's not surprising they were asked to do the robotic repairs for the hubble.

  2. Re:ISS helps USA? by snake_dad · · Score: 3, Informative
    Uh...isn't Hubble our only space telescope? At least, so far?

    Try googling for Chandra, Spitzer, Compton, IRAS, SOHO, HEAO, or Hipparcos, combined with "space observatory". Or just "space observatory".

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  3. First time... by clem9796 · · Score: 2, Informative

    I think this is the first time that the States has even mentioned that the arm is in fact a Canadian innovation. In movies, news, etc. I've never seen it mentioned before. Kinda like a wide range of other things that the US tries to take credit for.. I know, I know.. time for a flamebait mod, but it's true.

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  4. Re:And soon Canadians will make the launch vehicle by Christopher+Thomas · · Score: 2, Informative

    It won't be for this launch, or even the next one, but hopefully Canada will soon have companies making launch vehicles:

    I doubt this. We're in a horrible launch location (you want to be close to the equator), and the market is already pretty saturated (Arienne-5 and other solutions on the expensive side and Russian boosters on the less expensive side).

    I'll be the first to cheer if we do get Canadian launch facilities (way too much red tape getting things launched by the US), but I'm not holding my breath.