Canadarm

And we looked at it, and f- and then we saw it a, uh, g- in all kinds of aspects.

We saw it on the, on the, on the Canadarm going into outer space.

And we saw it on the, on m- this, the, the, people were flying it at, at games, at hockey games.

And, and we saw it, Terry Fox running across the country carrying it.

It is worth being precise about the terminology, because two different arms are routinely confused.

The original Canadarm was the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System, flown on the Space Shuttle from 1981, mounted in the payload bay and used to deploy and retrieve satellites.

Canadarm 2, a considerably larger and more capable arm, was installed on the International Space Station in 2001, and is a different machine entirely.

It has an unusual design feature.

Both ends are identical grapple fixtures, so it can release one end, pivot, and attach that end elsewhere on the station, walking itself hand over hand around the exterior to reach wherever it is needed.

Why should we be worrying about this? Well, one issue is that it can physically damage space assets.

So for example, in 2021, there was a one millimeter object that was traveling at 25,000 kilometers per hour relative to the space station, it's pierced the Canadarm.

And if you actually look at it, there's a hole in the Canadarm.

Thankfully, no important circuitry was destroyed, but it's a very near miss.

One thing as well that's important to know is that we're trying to track everything we can, but it's very difficult.

It just means that they now, they could now use things like robotic arms and things like that to bring things in.

The arm on the shuttle is, yeah, famously the Canadarm, as it's called.

Yeah, that's it.

So, yeah, the MMU, basically 24 carefully controlled nitrogen thrusters.

As opposed to the start, right, where she's whipping around.

She gets that slingshot effect when she gets off of the Canadarm without the flag, of course.

But she gets whipped off of that thing and he has no trouble going and retrieving her.

Well, no, and they're even not able to talk for a little while there.