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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."

8 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. helping is nice by everyplace · · Score: 3, Funny

    If ever there was a company to lend an arm to the repairs...

  2. 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.
  3. Conversation... by stienman · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Sure, we can fix your satellite for ya, eh, but it'll cost ya two cases and season box seats for hockey."

    -Adam

    1. Re:Conversation... by Lew+Pitcher · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Sure, we can fix your satellite for ya, eh, but it'll cost ya two cases and season box seats for hockey."

      Your comment is obviously not 'Canadian'. You didn't get the slang right. The correct quote would be:

      Sure, we can fix your satellite for you. But, it'll cost you a couple'a twofours and some "blues", eh.

      --

      "values of beta will give rise to dom!"

  4. 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.

  5. 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 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".

      --
      karma capped .sig seeking available Slashdot poster for long-term relationship.
  6. 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!