How it began
The arm, formally the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System, came out of a joint venture between the governments of Canada and the United States. In July 1975 Spar Aerospace was appointed prime contractor to the National Research Council of Canada for the design, development, testing and evaluation of the manipulator that Canada would supply to NASA. DSMA Atcon, CAE Electronics and RCA also took part. The arm first flew on November 12, 1981, on STS-2, the second flight of the shuttle Columbia.
How it works
Canadarm was about 15 meters long and weighed approximately 431 kilograms. It had shoulder, elbow and wrist joints that gave six degrees of freedom. At its tip an end effector could grapple large and possibly unbalanced targets. It could maneuver payloads of up to 14,515 kilograms. Astronauts operated it from inside the shuttle. Its subsystems covered mechanics, electrics, thermal control, displays and controls, software, computing and vision.
What changed first
The arm gave shuttle crews a reliable way to move and transfer heavy payloads and to support astronauts working outside. It was designed for a life of ten years or 100 missions. It was used to recover and service satellites, including several servicing missions to the Hubble Space Telescope, to inspect the spacecraft and to help build the International Space Station.
What lasted
Canadarm served through the 30 years of the shuttle program, which ended in 2011. It was followed by Canadarm2, the remote manipulator of the International Space Station, and by Dextre, a Canadian two-armed manipulator for finer work. Japanese, European and German space robot arms came after it as well. Parks Canada lists its 1981 deployment as a National Historic Event, and the IEEE named it an engineering milestone.
