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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. These guys are brilliant by MrAndrews · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I know some engineers from MDR and they are extremely bright people. If you happen to bump into one in a bar somewhere, be sure not to start talking about ergonomics, because you'll get drowned in actual information (rather than the pseudo-information average humans have). They deserve all the praise they get on these things, because I don't know anyone that works harder on more complex systems than these guys do.

    On the other hand, I hear they know nothing about hockey, so they're not all good...

    --
    The world's only surviving livewriter.
  2. ISS helps USA? by Pi_0's+don't+shower · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Go figure, NASA decides to abandon the ISS once the USA's commitment is finished, and somehow, the science used to build the ISS due to international collaboration just might save one of our most invaluable satellite telescopes. I think as long as something is done to save the HST for a few more years, we're in excellent shape. FYI -- the HST is the only instrument that can observe the lyman alpha/beta/gamma/etc. emission lines from the furthest galaxies (z >= 7)... despite all the redshifting, the James Webb Space Telescope won't be able to observe the most powerful of emission lines as the HST still can!

    1. Re:ISS helps USA? by grozzie2 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Go figure, NASA decides to abandon the ISS once the USA's commitment is finished, and somehow, the science used to build the ISS due to international collaboration just might save one of our most invaluable satellite telescopes.

      Actually, the canadarm has been on shuttles since very early in the shuttle program. Using them to work on Hubble is nothing new, reference this photo . That's the shuttle variation of the arm holding Hubble in preparation for a past repair mission. The real difference in this proposal, is the use of a second arm from the same folks, with more manipulators etc, to do the repair work, instead of sending an astronaut out for a walk. Nasa is risk adverse, with only 3 years to perform the mission, they wont try find a 'new' contractor at this stage, they'll go with a known quantity, the folks that have been building them arms for as long as they've been in use on shuttles.

      About the only downside to this style of repair mission, it'll emphasize the lack of relavence of 'manned missions' with modern robotic technology available. Cant help but wonder if that's really a bad thing. A robotic mission to service the Hubble will likely cost a LOT less than a manned shuttle launch, and achieve the same end result. Cant see any downside to it.

  3. And soon Canadians will make the launch vehicles by madprogrammer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It won't be for this launch, or even the next one, but hopefully Canada will soon have companies making launch vehicles:
    The da Vinci Project and Canadian Arrow are showing great potential!