When Canadarm2 was first launched to ISS onboard Shuttle Endeavour on 19 April 2001 and installed three days later by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield and NASA astronaut Scott Parazynski, it was designed to be controlled and operated by astronauts with a primary goal of assembling of the orbiting outpost. <\/p>\n
Fast forward 19 years to today, robotic control is now managed mostly by teams via ground commands\u2026 with the added goal of testing autonomous operations to support the needs of future spaceflight and the lunar Gateway with Canadarm3. <\/p>\n
While most Canadarm2 and Dextre operations are commonly known to support arriving cargo crafts along with spacewalks, the joint Canadian Space Agency and NASA Robotics team (ROBO) \u2014 in Saint-Hubert, Quebec, Canada and Houston, Texas, United States \u2014 is kept busy with robotics operations occurring two or three days a week.<\/p>\n
Most recently, that has been showcased with the Robotic Refueling Mission 3 demonstration \u2014 which was carried out over multiple days via ground-commands from NASA and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) flight controllers.<\/p>\n
The goal of the NASA Goddard Robotic Refueling Mission 3 was to safely demonstrate the transfer of cryogenic fuel in space via robotic control \u2014 which could help make space exploration more sustainable and allow for future missions not yet possible.<\/p>\n
The constant eye toward the future is one of the primary goals of the Canadian Space Agency\u2019s robotics team, and an element of the overall Space Station\u2019s objective to serve as a testbed for new technologies and processes that will be vital for future human and robotic exploration throughout the solar system.<\/p>\n
A large part of that will be the need for near or complete autonomy in future robotic arms and Dextre-like robotics, most urgently for the multi-national, NASA-led lunar Gateway and Artemis Programs. And that\u2019s where Canadarm2 and Dextre outside the International Space Station serve as test platforms.<\/p>\n