![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Canadarm-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\nFrom its first flight in November 1981, to the on-going evolution of the technology to take it from low Earth orbit out toward the Moon, the various Canadarms and their associated space robotic platforms have been an ever-present and critical element of human space exploration.<\/p>\n
Now, as the need to develop a more autonomous robotic system for the Lunar Gateway arrives for MDA of Canada, the company simultaneously finds itself working to meet the growing commercial demand for space-based robotics. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Across nearly 40 years of operations, the five Canadarms and three Orbiter Boom Sensor System (OBSS) arms for the Space Shuttle, as well as Canadarm2, Dextre (formally known as the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator), and the other elements of the Mobile Servicing System (MSS) for the International Space Station have amassed more than 3 million hours of engineering and operational support for various on-orbit activities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat body of knowledge, from an operation procedure perspective \u2014 and the things you have to anticipate, react to, plan for, deal with, have solutions for \u2014 is a tremendous asset as you try to extract that knowledge base and put it in an AI-based control environment,\u201d enthused Mike Greenley, CEO of MDA in an interview with NASASpaceflight centering on the interaction between the company\u2019s simultaneous development of Canadarm3 and its commercial market arms and systems. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a tremendous asset to have at our disposal as we deal with this next generation of evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
The largest element of that asset stems from the development of more autonomous uses of the arms.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The OBSS (left) rests in its cradle as Canadarm (right) is maneuvered for operations. (Credit: NASA).<\/p>\n
With Shuttle\u2019s Canadarm, crew members on the Flight Deck would manually control the arm, using their eyes as well as monitors feeding them views from cameras on the end for the arm for operations. Over 30 years, the first generation of Canadarm provided ample opportunity for repetitive use and functionality of the arms \u2014 a key first step toward trust in automation.<\/p>\n
SpaceX (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n As with Shuttle, the Station\u2019s Canadarm2 started with crew-only operations in the early 2000s. It was not until Dextre launched in 2008 that autonomy and a transition of control capabilities from the Station down to the ground began.<\/p>\n \u201cSo you\u2019ve got this very, sort of, over decades evolutionary shift of building a solid hardware system that gets to be proven and then gets to be tweaked and modified that\u2019s now operated for 20 plus years as a hardware system and a robotic solution on Space Station, but then a control environment that gets to shift from a Shuttle, to a space station, and then down to Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the same for us in life. We don\u2019t start with saying, I\u2019m going to wrest control of my life to this machine. You kind of try it out a little bit. And through repeated action you kind of go, \u2018Okay, I\u2019m comfortable with this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Greenley added: \u201cI think that in a mission critical human spaceflight environment, the standards by which you go, \u2018Yeah, I trust this,\u2019 will be a little higher. But the psychology will be very similar.\u201d<\/p>\n Just as trust in the robotic system\u2019s ability to work as designed when commanded was proven time and again on Shuttle, growing confidence in telerobotic controlling as well as automation of Dextre and Canadarm2 has developed in recent years.<\/p>\n