Canada sending robot to space

[Dusty Ayres]

Canada is sending a 200 million dollar robot to the international space station next month to take over a lot of the heavy lifting being done by astronauts. The two armed robot, known as Dextre, is tentatively scheduled to be launched March 11th on board space shuttle Endeavor. Dexter will perform exterior construction and basic tasks like changing batteries, and installing and removing experiments on the space station.

Canada sending robot to space

 

[Bill Morris]

And that's in addition to the existing Canadarm2, which is totally cool and useful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadarm2

 

[Mark de Vries]

I'm looking forward to seeing it in action, see what it can do.

Launch on 11 March at the earliest.

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

And that's in addition to the existing Canadarm2, which is totally cool and useful

Its hand is pretty awesome looking too :thumbsup:

 

[Mark de Vries]

That hand is the DEXTRE robot.

 

[Johnny Rico]

What's new about this? This extension to the station am has always been on the books. The only thing special about this is that its resemblane to a robot with two arms has come to light recently with the press releases about STS-123.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

The press coverage is new. Plus, Canada's visible contributions to ISS are few but flashy - of COURSE we'd want to make some noise about it. JAXA is similarly all over the launch of the first of three segments to their own contribution, the Kibo ELM-PS module.

And technically, it's not Canada that's sending DEXTRE to the station. It's the American and Japanese astronauts on STS-123 that are doing it, with an American shuttle. But from now on, the infamous "Canadian handshakes" that they have been doing whenever they handoff a module from the shuttle's Canadarm to the station's Canadarm 2, there will be an actual "hand" involved. :P

Mark

 

[stormleader]

I love Canada.

 

[FalTorPan]

Canada is sending a 200 million dollar robot to the international space station next month to take over a lot of the heavy lifting being done by astronauts. The two armed robot, known as Dextre, is tentatively scheduled to be launched March 11th on board space shuttle Endeavor. Dexter will perform exterior construction and basic tasks like changing batteries, and installing and removing experiments on the space station.

Canada sending robot to space

I understand that they'll send the robot there by way of the Leaf Ericson.

 

[Dusty Ayres]

Canada is sending a 200 million dollar robot to the international space station next month to take over a lot of the heavy lifting being done by astronauts. The two armed robot, known as Dextre, is tentatively scheduled to be launched March 11th on board space shuttle Endeavor. Dexter will perform exterior construction and basic tasks like changing batteries, and installing and removing experiments on the space station.

Canada sending robot to space

I understand that they'll send the robot there by way of the Leaf Ericson.

I was just at that website a few weeks ago, guy, and I enjoyed it immensely! If I could, I'd buy the model kit being sold on the site too!

I wish that the Leaf Ericson did actually exist, and that Canada had a space program of its own. Thanks for the funny joke/pep to the spirit.