“Houston, We Have a Podcast” is the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, the home of human spaceflight, stationed in Houston, Texas. We bring space right to you! On this podcast, you’ll learn from some of the brightest minds of America’s space agency as they discuss topics in engineering, science, technology and more. You’ll hear firsthand from astronauts what it’s like to launch atop a rocket, live in space and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere. And you’ll listen in to the more human side of space as our guests tell stories of behind-the-scenes moments never heard before.
Episode 14 features Tim Braithwaite, Liaison Manager for the Canadian Space Agency, who talks about robotic arms in space: how they were conceived and developed, how they work today, and how the technology is useful on Earth. This episode was recorded on October 3, 2017.
Transcript
Gary Jordan (Host): Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center Episode 14: Robotic Arms in Space. I’m Gary Jordan and I’ll be your host today. So if you’re new to the show, this is where we bring in NASA experts– scientists, engineers, astronauts– all to tell you the coolest stuff about what’s going on here at NASA. So today we’re talking with Tim Braithwaite. He’s the Canadian Space Agency’s Liaison Manager here at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. And we talked about the robotic arms in space, which is perfect because astronauts aboard the international space station are going to perform three spacewalks in the month of October. And in all three the astronauts are working on the Canadarm2, which we’ll be talking about in this episode, along with how it was developed and how it works today, how the technology helps people here on earth, and what’s coming up in the future. But for a lot of episodes, we tie topics to what’s going on today here in space, and try to explain it at a high level. We’re always listening to what you want to hear about, and we’re looking on social media especially. So if you’ve listened to previous episodes, we tell you where to ask these questions so we can put it in the podcast at the end of every episode. So I wanted to answer this Twitter question from Jennifer, who asked after the mission control episode, “when you run an experiment, are scientists invited to the Mission Control Center?” So I went and did some digging and found out that sometimes they come to mission control Houston, but a lot of the times they’re patched through from the payload operations integration center at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. They’re patched all the way up to the astronauts on the International Space Station. Otherwise they can be patched through from a remote location, and they sort of help walk the astronauts through some of their tasks, and sometimes they can just kind of watch and monitor as they’re doing it. So anyway, today we’re going to be talking about robotic arms in space with Mr. Tim Braithwaite. So with no further delay, let’s go light speed and jump right ahead to that talk. Enjoy.
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Host:So thanks for coming on, and I know it’s been particularly busy recently, especially because in the month of October we have a few spacewalks going out that are particularly focusing on robotic arms, right, specifically the canadarm2?
Tim Braithwaite: Exactly. This first spacewalk especially, on Thursday the 5th is pretty much entirely dedicated to replacing one of our two latching end effectors on canadarm2.
Host:Okay, and what’s a latching end effector?
Tim Braithwaite: The arm is more or less symmetrical, and at each end you kind of call it the working hand of the arm.
Host:Oh, okay.
Tim Braithwaite: –is what you call the latching end effector. We usually call it a LEE– l-e-e.
Host:Okay, lots of acronyms here.
Tim Braithwaite: It’s not a hand in the sense that it has fingers, but there are grasping, grappling and latching mechanisms that will allow you to capture a free flying cargo vehicle in space, or step onto another module on the space station and make that the new operating base, then release the other end and the arm can walk end over end.
Host:Oh.
Tim Braithwaite: But the latching end effector package is a big thing– it’s a sort of cylinder a little over a meter long, weighs over 200 kilograms.
Host:Wow.
Tim Braithwaite: So it’s a big package. There are three different mechanisms with gear trains of their own, lots of onboard electronics, what we call a force end moment sensor. So when that LEE is the tip of the arm, it can actually sense how hard it’s pushing against something or how hard something is pushing back. And that’s very useful if we are inserting a big item, like the Japanese cargo vehicle has an external pallet that we extract and then reinsert like a drawer into a chest of drawers. And imagine if you’re doing that at home, being able to feel how you’re lined up and feel the forces on one side or the other. That’s a very useful thing to getting the drawer all the way in successfully.
Host:Right.
Tim Braithwaite: And the same sort of principles apply with canadarm2– that force end moment sensor capability is very useful. But that’s all part of that big, pretty complex package in the canadarm2 LEEs.
Host:Okay, so latching end effector. And we can get into some of the more specific things later here, and just focusing on how that works and what it can grab. But I really wanted to have this conversation today because of this, right– you know, we’re replacing a latching end effector, and we have some regular maintenance, too, coming up with some of the other spacewalks. But really, this kind of begs the question for just a robotic arm, the idea of a robotic arm in space. So if you could kind of give like a general overview of what a robotic arm in space does– because it is significant.
Tim Braithwaite: The robotic arms do a lot of things. And often, things– honestly– that you didn’t necessarily anticipate. So going all the way back to the space shuttle program, when NASA was planning out its space shuttle back in the ’70s.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: They started a dialogue with the Canadian government. This was actually before the Canadian space agency existed. Back then it was the national research council of Canada.
Host:Oh.
Tim Braithwaite: And they started a dialogue, and by sort of the mid 1970s had an agreement going forward that Canada would provide what we called a remote manipulator system. And that’s the robotic arm, that familiar arm that you see in all those pictures of the space shuttle.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: And the first Canadarm, as we called it in Canada, flew on sts-2.
Host:On the space shuttle?
Tim Braithwaite: On the very second flight that they flew an arm on that– there wasn’t an arm on every single space shuttle flight. That was the first one there was, and they deployed it and shipped it out and started learning what an arm could do for you. The original concept was that they might deploy satellites out of the payload bay, catch satellites and service them or bring them back to earth. But what we say over those first years of operation with the space shuttle was that they were thinking of things that they hadn’t anticipated. I remember one case in particular– the space shuttle sometimes vented fluids out the sides– they just vented stuff overboard. And one time, the vent wasn’t working quite right and an icicle grew out of the side of the space shuttle.
Host:Ooh.
Tim Braithwaite: And they were concerned about that– it might break off during reentry, might be a problem.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: So they planned this operation no one ever imagined that they would knock the icicle off with the robotic arm.
Host:No way!
Tim Braithwaite: And that was one of many– and there were other things, too– trying to throw a switch on the outside of a rotating satellite using the arm. Just things you hadn’t thought of, and that’s the great potential for flexibility that this sort of robotic arm can give you. You have a capability to go look at things up close because there’s a camera on the end.
Host:Oh, okay.
Tim Braithwaite: You– I mean, during the course of the space station program, years later, we started capturing free flying cargo vehicles. The very first one was the Japanese cargo vehicle, htv-1. I think that was in 2009.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: And that was years after the arm arrived on space station back in 2001. And all this work– and actually, some expansion capability of the arm to satisfy all the safety requirements so we could do that– you have this big spacecraft gently fly up under the space station and sit there, and the arm would reach out and securely grasp it and then attach it to the space station. I mean, that’s– again, part of that expanding capability that’s been so neat.
Host:Yeah. I mean, when you think about the human arm, right, you think about just the fact that it’s got that joint– and then at the tip of it is the hand. And the hand is not meant for just one task, right, the hand is meant to do a bunch of different things and kind of manipulate. Was there some sort of engineering that went into the hand or the robotic arm that sort of emulates that of a hand to be as flexible as possible with all these tasks here that you’re talking about?
Tim Braithwaite: Well, just as with a human arm, we can make ourselves tools that we would go use.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: We have the same capability to go do that with robotics. For the canadarm2 end effector, which is quite similar to it– it’s evolved from that original shuttle arm end effector– it was designed in particular to be able to release a satellite, to deploy it in space, and not leave any residual rates on it. It had to be able to let it go and not have it be moving or tumbling or anything. It had to let it go and it would be perfectly still, and they could back away without any rates on it so that the mechanisms that we have with the– we have these steel cables which we call snare cables.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: And that whole assembly is designed to be able to let it go and have it be perfectly still. So that was the basis of that.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: But for space station, the proper name of our whole system, the whole suite of robotics, is actually the mobile servicing system. We are there– these Canadian robots are here to service the space station. We’re here to do maintenance.
Host:Oh!
Tim Braithwaite: So beyond just the canadarm2– which is a big arm, does a lot of heavy lifting– it can move remarkably large, massive objects– we also built a two-armed maintenance robot which we call Dextre. It’s the special purpose dexterous manipulator, but we call it Dextre.
Host:Sure.
Tim Braithwaite: It looks– it’s got two arms. It looks a little bit like a guy, but it’s actually really big. But these dexterous arms, which have a smaller and different kind of end effector on those smaller arms, they’re able to do more dexterous tasks, more refined– we can replace small electronic boxes on the outside of the space station. We’ve done that a few times now with power controller modules that need to be replaced.
Host:Mm-hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: Other boxes which were designed for robotic maintenance. The interfaces on these boxes must match the design of the hand that these end effectors, whether on Dextre or on canadarm2. But if it’s designed for that– and we’ve demonstrated we can do a lot of really cool maintenance that relieves the space station crew from having to go outside and do spacewalks, which are very cool, but they take a lot of time.
Host:Right.
Tim Braithwaite: And that allows– frees them up to stay inside and do science and research, do all that great stuff.
Host:Absolutely. I mean, the whole benefit of sending humans out to do spacewalks is– you know, first of all, they can make decisions real time, and it’s real quick on what they can do. But they have hands– they can use tools, and those tools are meant to operate and fix things on the outside of the station, but you’re saying that Dextre, in a way, at the end of the canadarm2 can accomplish a lot of those tasks and then do some of the service work that the astronauts would otherwise have to do.
Tim Braithwaite: Right. I mean, Dextre in one sense is a tool.
Host:Hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: The robots themselves, they are not thinking for themselves. We can’t– we’re not yet at the point where we can tell it, “go change out that box,” and it goes and does it on its own.
Host:As cool as that would be.
Tim Braithwaite: As cool as that will be, and there will come a time when that will be. However, we are not there yet.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: When we started out, when we first launched the arm, just like the shuttle arm, on space station, we had a system that had to be operated by the crew on orbit. And there is what we call the robotics workstation– one in the lab module, one in the cupola where all the windows are.
Host:Mm-hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: And the astronauts can be there, and they can operate the arm. And they have hand controllers, and they throw the switches, and they have monitors that show the camera views from cameras on the arm, cameras elsewhere on the station. And what we realized actually after the arm was flown was that as much work as we do on space station, we could do this from the ground– we could remotely operate these robots safely from the ground. And during the course of space station assembly– and that was one of the great accomplishments, especially mostly for canadarm2, was assembly of the space station. There were very few pieces of– big pieces on the U.S. Segment of the space station, whether modules or big pieces of truss, that weren’t handled by canadarm2.
Host:Wow.
Tim Braithwaite: Yeah, I mean, whether– I mean, often the shuttle arm had to take these things out of the payload bay of the shuttle when it came up, hand it off to canadarm2, and they would then be installed. And the station was built up in that way. So canadarm2 in a very real sense assembled the space station.
Host:Absolutely.
Tim Braithwaite: But once we got past that, we realized we can do a lot of this work by remotely operating this system from the ground, especially when we operate Dextre. If we’re going to go do maintenance– one of those power control module replacements– doing it robotically can take actually quite a long time. All the end to end work, getting the spare, getting to the worksite.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: Pulling the old one out, putting the new one in– that can actually take a couple days even, in a long, complex case. And the astronauts onboard are too busy for that.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: So we figured– we went through this long process, a lot of it dealing with the safety processes, making sure we had what we call enough fault tolerance that no one failure could really leave us in trouble during the course of this– and established what we called ground control. And in fact, today, most of the robotics work that goes on on space station is done controlling our robots from the ground– whether here at mission control in Houston, or we have a support control center in Montreal in Canada that connects here to mission control, and that one unified Canadian/American team operates the arm from the ground.
Host:Wow.
Tim Braithwaite: And that’s a tremendous time saving for the astronaut crew, but also an amazing enhancement for the whole program, because it allows us to just do so much more than we otherwise would.
Host:So when it first– you mentioned when it first launched, the canadarm2 to the international space station, it was working hand in hand with shuttle arms, right? You were talking about a hand-off. That was all operated by astronauts, both the shuttle arm and the canadarm2 from the space station?
Tim Braithwaite: Absolutely, and at that time, we had two flight control teams, because we had the space shuttle robotic arm flight controllers– and although it’s also a big white arm that says Canada on the side, it’s actually quite a different system under the skin, so we had those guys, those flight controllers who built those procedures, work with the shuttle astronauts to make sure that that procedure would go just right. And then on the space station side, we built the procedures for our system, worked with that crew and orchestrated what were sometimes fairly complex hand-off operations.
Host:Huh. Yeah, I mean, you’re talking about in space, travelling around the earth at 17,500 miles an hour, two ships pretty much travelling that fast together and handing off stuff to each other.
Tim Braithwaite: It’s– the complexity of– especially during those space shuttle missions, the whole day was timelined so tightly that everything had to go just right. And we’ve got, in those cases– and this is what I used to do. When I first came to Houston, I was working on the space station robotics flight control side. I was what they called a Robo. That was the name of our– the flight control discipline.
Host:And you were in charge of the canadarm2?
Tim Braithwaite: Right.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: And we had to make sure that these two big robotic arms– well, first and foremost, never bumped into anything, including each other. So you know, monitoring the volumes that they’re working in, maybe making sure that while one of them’s moving the other one’s not– all of the steps that you would logically take just to make sure that you know exactly where all the moving pieces are.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: And a hand-off, something that you and I would do trivially sitting here handing a pen from one arm to the other.
Host:Mm-hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: Again, everything’s more complicated when you’re doing it with space robots.
Host:You’re doing it from far away, in space, several robots, several teams.
Tim Braithwaite: Right, and also, the– we don’t even think about the sophistication that we have with our own arms. We can exactly when somebody’s pulling too hard and let go reflexively. The robotic arms aren’t instrumented quite that well, so a lot of the work that we do is to analyze to make sure that the loads are not going to be so large that the arm gets damaged, or the operating base that it’s working from gets damaged, or the payload that we’re handing off gets damaged. Again, the complexity of that big picture is really remarkable.
Host:So I mean, in space, though– you think about it– I mean, there’s– you don’t really have to worry about gravity. So when you’re handling these objects, what are you thinking about when handling large payloads?
Tim Braithwaite: Well, and that’s right, because nothing– there’s not really weight.
Host:Mm-hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: But there is still mass.
Host:Absolutely.
Tim Braithwaite: And with mass comes inertia and momentum.
Host:Yes.
Tim Braithwaite: And anything that you get moving you’re eventually going to have to slow down. And we have seen that maneuvering modules around. You know, people often joke that these robots, gosh, they move so slowly.
Host:Right.
Tim Braithwaite: And that’s not to say that they couldn’t move faster, but if they did, there would be consequences. We have seen– you get modules moving really quickly and then all of that momentum has to be taken out at the other end of the motion.
Host:You’ve got to stop, yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: Otherwise the station’s orientation would have to adjust to that.
Host:I mean, even the station’s orientation changes when astronauts are working out. And they built systems to mitigate that. So if you’re talking about a really large object, I mean, you don’t do it right and you can fling– you can– you know–
Tim Braithwaite: You can flip the station over.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: Because these modules often weigh tens of thousands of pounds.
Host:Wow.
Tim Braithwaite: And again, we maneuver those with great care to make sure that we’re managing that momentum in an intelligent way so that, you know, again, the momentum doesn’t get the best of us.
Host:So by managing momentum, that’s where moving things slowly from point a to point b comes into place.
Tim Braithwaite: That’s right.
Host:Absolutely. And I’m guessing there’s some sort of special technique, too, in order to do that, right? Because you’ve said, you know, you have to start a motion, but then also stop. Is there like a slow acceleration and then a slow deceleration? Is there a fancy technique you guys use?
Tim Braithwaite: I’m not sure how fancy a technique it is.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: You make sure you’re not getting it going too fast. You want to– the arm is designed to move things in straight lines. If that is our desire– certainly if we are berthing a module into that berthing interface on the space station, it needs to go in right along at a perfect, aligned axis for the mechanism to line up properly. And we can do that, and again, that generally needs to happen pretty slowly, because if you push too hard, again, if you’re pushing that drawer into your chest of drawers at home, if you push it too hard, it’s going to bang at the back. Or if you’re pulling it out, and it sticks, and you pull harder and harder and harder, all of a sudden when it lets go– we’ve all felt that– all of a sudden it jerks out at us.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: And we want to avoid that sort of momentum release on the space station.
Host:Absolutely. I mean, it seems pretty intuitive to us, right– you know, if you feel something pulling too hard, then pull a bit harder or something, make it come out, do what you have to do. And you can make those decisions real time, but if you’re designing a system to do that, you’ve got to think about all these minute little things. I know– I mean, especially because I do commentary sometimes in mission control, and we’ll do that for capturing cargo. So we’ll capture a SpaceX dragon or an orbital ATK Cygnus vehicle. And you know, it’ll have this motion where it captures, and we’ll actually go off-air for a little bit once it’s captured. We’ll say the captured time, and then we go off-air for about an hour, maybe an hour and some change, and then we’ll come back on when it’s in berthing position. Because it’s this big procedure, you know, where it has to turn, and we already know what’s going to happen, so there’s little commentary we can add between that. But you know, you have that procedure in order to berth it.
Tim Braithwaite: Right, and that cargo vehicle, which weighs probably tens of thousands of pounds, is going to be flipped around, maneuvered around really slowly so the space station’s momentum management system can sort of keep up with all of that and allow the space station to maintain the proper orientation, keep the solar arrays pointed at the sun, keep the antennas pointed at the satellites.
Host:Wow– just a lot of things you have to think of. But you know, kind of going back to the history, you briefly mentioned that, I mean, there was a conversation that started with NASA and– I’m sorry, it was not CSA at the time, it was–
Tim Braithwaite: CSA was established by an act of parliament in 1989.
Host:Oh, okay.
Tim Braithwaite: And before that, CSA– Canadian space agency– didn’t exist. It was the national research council.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: And that was sort of the original science organization within the Canadian government that established that relationship with NASA, worked with Canadian industry to design and build what we call the Canadarm, the remote manipulator system.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: And then provide that to be part of the space shuttle program.
Host:Okay. So what was the– why did NASA go and have this relationship with the national resource council? So what was it– did you already– were you already inventing robotic arms?
Tim Braithwaite: I think at that time; the robotic arm was a relatively new concept.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: There were engineers who realized that this was something that they could do. The industrial group that was part of that, which included what was then spar aerospace, who were the prime contractor for the robotic arm, they already had a history with antennae and space mechanisms that went on satellites. And I think this was a natural expansion of something that they could do. And it was kind of a revolutionary design. It was certainly not something that had been done in space before.
Host:Absolutely.
Tim Braithwaite: And once that capability arrives and you start using it– just as when you get a new tool at home– it’s cool, and you play with it. And once you start playing with it, then you really start to say, “hey, I could use it for this. I could use it for this.” And as I was saying before, when little contingencies come up, you go, “okay, well, let’s go take a look at it with the arm.” So you can get the arm in a new position it’s never been in and point a camera to take a look at something.
Host:Right.
Tim Braithwaite: Go knock that icicle off– whatever the new capabilities are. And that’s what robots bring, is this ability to control your environment and expand your capability.
Host:So whenever– you said the first Canadarm flew on sts-2, right? And that was relatively quickly– it was already on shuttle flights. So what did you start learning through that process of– I guess you went on more shuttle flights after that, right? The Canadarm 1?
Tim Braithwaite: Right, the original Canadarm. I don’t know the proportion of how many flights it was on, how many it wasn’t. Most times that they needed to deploy a satellite– sometimes the satellites would– there would be a mechanism that would just sort of pop it out of the payload bay.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: But often, if there was a satellite capture that needed to go on, you needed the arm to have the shuttle fly up– the arm would then reach out, grab the satellite, and then maybe berth it into something in the payload bay. If there were spacewalks, you could put an astronaut in a foot restraint standing on the end of the arm, and have the arm maneuver that astronaut around.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: Because again, in space, you’re not standing on anything. You’re not moving in the conventional sense that we are used to, working on a worksite here in 1 g.
Host:Right.
Tim Braithwaite: So it was just a series of more and more expansive capabilities. And there are actually some really neat photographs from those early shuttle missions. They were experimenting with building trusses. This was before space station, and they were imagining how space station might be built. And some of those early concepts were sort of sticks and balls, and they would make these big trusses and maneuver them around.
Host:That’s amazing. So when you’re learning along this way, you have a need– for example, where it says, “hey, we need a– we have something coming up where we’re going to have to probably put an astronaut at the end of this arm.” So do you develop tools that they can interact with in order to make that happen so they can put their feet in there?
Tim Braithwaite: Right, the arm would have needed to be fitted with some sort of socket or fixture. So what they call a foot restraint could be really securely attached, because you know, the last thing you want is you put it on but then when you’re standing on it, it floats off.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: So it’s all about crew safety, and the crew has got to be safely attached and then safely tethered in a redundant way so they don’t float away. But yeah, every time we have a new capability like that, often we have to look at the hardware and go, “okay, what do we need to do and adjust or add?” But a thing to remember there– on the space shuttle program, the space shuttle came home after its mission, whether it was one week, or two weeks, or whatever it was.
Host:Right.
Tim Braithwaite: And the guys at spar would get that arm back, and they would get to lovingly dote over it and see how it was doing.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: And then prepare another arm. And there were a few arms that I think got rotated between the space shuttles. They could be taken off and put back on.
Host:Right, there were multiple shuttles and multiple missions.
Tim Braithwaite: Right.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: So that sort of adjustment could be made relatively easy. The difference between that and what we have now on space station is that canadarm2 was launched in April 2001 on a space shuttle mission. It was attached to the space station and has been there ever since.
Host:Still working.
Tim Braithwaite: Still working, yes. Still working more than 16 years later.
Host:Wow.
Tim Braithwaite: And that’s just a wonderful thing, and what we’ve really seen is that especially in recent years, the pace of the robotics work has just been increasing. I talked about the free flying cargo vehicles. The very first one– and what a milestone that was– in 2009 with the first Japanese cargo vehicle. And then the U.S. Commercial vehicles started flying– the SpaceX dragon and the orbital ATK Cygnus vehicles. And they did their demo flights, then they would start– and the pace has been increasing. So now we do one of– we are capturing a free flying cargo vehicle every month or two.
Host:That’s right– we have two coming up in November.
Tim Braithwaite: Right. This year, this calendar year, 2017, all going well, we will have done six free flying cargo vehicles. Last year I think it was five.
Host:Wow.
Tim Braithwaite: The pace is always increasing. And the space station program is realizing, too, that our ability to do maintenance on the outside of the ISS is a really important, valuable thing.
Host:Absolutely.
Tim Braithwaite: And now that we’ve demonstrated that we’re able to do it– and just as with us as humans, the first time you do something, you always think about it a lot more, it always seems a little bit harder. But once you’ve done something a couple of times, you kind of get the hang of it.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: And now we’ve done a few maintenance tasks with those power controller modules. We relatively recently did what’s called a main bus switching unit, which is part of the space station power system.
Host:Mm-hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: And the demand is increasing. Hey– we’ve done this before. Can we slip this task in between this free flying vehicle and this free flying vehicle?
So the effort– the amount of work that the robots are continually doing just seems to be increasing, and that’s the really exciting part is because the system was built to be used. It’s working fabulously well.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: And the more we use it the more the appetite of the program to use it more– because we can accomplish more– that appetite’s increasing and that’s just great.
Host:So uses-wise it’s going up. And you said there’s a lot of stuff that it’s doing, especially you were talking a lot about capturing cargo vehicles. So when– even commercial companies are designing their cargo vehicle– they say, “well, how– what’s going to happen once it gets to the international space station?” And they think, “well, there’s a robotic arm. The robotic arm can capture it and they can do that.” So, I mean, you’ve got a lot of missions and a lot more tasks coming up. And you sort of hinted at it, but what is it doing in between these cargo missions? It’s capturing cargo when it comes to the station, but what else is it doing? You mentioned that MBSU was one of them– the power unit.
Tim Braithwaite: Right. Well, there is station maintenance and activities.
Host:Mm-hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: But often, especially in the case of the SpaceX dragon vehicle, it has in behind the pressurized module there is what we call the trunk, and that’s a cylindrical space that’s open at the back and they have been flying external cargo in the trunk. And that cargo can only be extracted using our robots.
Host:Oh, yes.
Tim Braithwaite: So we will– for example, coming right up at the end of this year, SpaceX 13 is going to have three items in the trunk that are going to need to be deployed. So after the big arm captures the dragon, berths it to the space station, then we’re going to go have the big arm pick up Dextre and then with Dextre reach into the trunk and take those three items out and do with them whatever they are. More and more lately, we have been handling science payloads for external. It’s not actually maintenance. It’s part of space station science that we’re able to support with the Canadian robot. And those pieces of science hardware were made to be attached to the station truss or one of the modules someplace. Sometimes we take old experiments or old hardware that’s no longer needed, there’s not room for it anymore on the space station, we need the attachment point so we’ll put it back in the trunk for it to be deorbited.
Host:Oh.
Tim Braithwaite: And the stuff in the trunk doesn’t return to earth in the conventional sense. It burns up in the atmosphere.
Host:Right.
Tim Braithwaite: But it needs to be off the station. Sometimes you need to take out the trash, otherwise there’s no room in your house anymore.
Host:Yeah. I mean, that– I was thinking about that as an analogy while you were describing that. It’s kind of like you have a shipment to– that’s delivered to your house and then you have a robot unpack it for you and put it where it needs to be. I think we should put some of these robotic arms in our homes.
Tim Braithwaite:There you go.
Host:Because I really don’t want to unpack my groceries anymore.
Tim Braithwaite:Well, there you go.
Host:I could just have a Canadarm to do it.
Tim Braithwaite: And often, after you take– after you take that delivery at home there’s all these boxes that you then got to get rid of.
Host:Yeah. Right. Oh, yeah, so then it can pack out all my groceries, put it in the fridge, and then throw away all the boxes that it came in. There you go.
Tim Braithwaite: There you go.
Host:Yeah, you have a lot more capabilities too, because you mentioned the Dextre too. So the latching end effector can grab x, y, and z, right? But, maybe it can’t grab m-l-b, but if you attached the Dextre to it, Dextre can grab m-l-b, right? So it that kind of how it works? It has different things that it can grab, different fingers?
Tim Braithwaite: Right, and with Dextre, we have a much more refined precise capability.
Host:Mm-hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: And given its size, it’s like over– trying to remember in my head. It’s over 17 meters long, the big arm.
Host:Wow.
Tim Braithwaite: It still can precisely position its tip to within a couple of centimeters.
Host:Hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: But with Dextre, those smaller arm’s designed with much more refined end effectors. The precision that is possible is actually kind of millimeter level.
Host:Wow.
Tim Braithwaite: And we see that looking through– we have a boresight camera in those dexterous arm end effectors and we can see ourselves maneuvering down onto the grasp fixtures. And it’s a very precise capability. So if we need to remove some power controller module, the positioning requirements are fairly tight.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: And with Dextre we have that capability and it’s pretty remarkable to see what’s possible.
Host:There you go. Dextre can get exactly to where you need to be by a matter of millimeters.
Tim Braithwaite: Right. Right. And also, with that force in moment sensing capability that I described that we have with canadarm2, we also have it in Dexter’s dexterous arms.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: So again, when you’re inserting a box into a slot, you really value that ability to detect those side forces.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: And make sure you’re not getting it bound up.
Host:Wow. And all of this is being operated from the ground, right?
Tim Braithwaite: Controlled from the ground.
Host:So who’s– I guess, is it– I actually forgot to ask you this question now that I’m thinking about it. But, you said you were a flight controller for a while, you were Robo. Who were you talking to to pull off some of these maneuvers? Because you said it’s a big coordination act obviously on your end. There’s a decent amount of communication that needs to go by to make that happen.
Tim Braithwaite: Well, at the very beginning, and I was a Robo in those very first years starting in 2001.
Host:Mm-hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: At that point, we were not yet actually doing ground controlled motion. That didn’t start until years later, until after I actually had moved out of that job.
Host:Oh. Oh, okay.
Tim Braithwaite: We were still commanding our system, so we would power up the– we would power the system up because there’s no motion involved. But when you power up your computer you push the button that starts the power, you might do the log-in, you might load software in a particular way.
Host:Mm-hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: None of that actually moved anything.
Host:Oh.
Tim Braithwaite: We send all of those commands. We could also pan and tilt the cameras.
Host:Hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: Which is actually motion in a small way.
Host:Yeah, yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: But, the flight controllers, the coordination is through the flight director.
Host:Ah.
Tim Braithwaite: And for the Robos, it’s Houston flight.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: So that’s our direct real time authority comes from the flight director. That’s who we report to.
Host:Okay. So okay, you were moving Houston flight I’m going to do– maneuver x, y, z.
Tim Braithwaite: Exactly. And coordinating with the other flight controllers in the room.
Host:Right.
Tim Braithwaite: Because we power certainly communications, all of that interaction needs to go on to make sure– and the timing just right, make sure if the crew are exercising and there’s a little bit of vibration, we need to make sure that we stay away from that on the schedule.
Host:Mm-hmm. So, say for example we were doing a– we’re doing a maneuver to capture the dragon, for example. And so, the crew is the one that actually captures the dragon now, right? So they’re–
Tim Braithwaite: Right, that’s one thing we don’t do from the ground is the preflight captures and releases.
Host:So then afterwards, you have to move it into its berthing position and you do that from the ground, right?
Tim Braithwaite: Right.
Host:So, who is doing that– is there coordination with the Robo console on– in mission control Houston, is there a Canadian space agency involvement as well?
Tim Braithwaite: The Robo console– the way it works is we have the front room, which is where the flight director is.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: And usually the Robo is there, but also here in mission control there is what they call a back room.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: And there are two more support robotics flight controllers who talk to the Robo and they’re part of that team.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: There is also a back room in Montreal.
Host:Ah.
Tim Braithwaite: So those supporting flight controllers– or now, even sometimes even the Robo, him or her self, can be up there in Montreal, still talking to Houston flight.
Host:Right.
Tim Braithwaite: That command in control line of authority still works in just the same way. It’s just a matter of location.
Host:There you go.
Tim Braithwaite: And as we’ve learned with ground control robotics, location can be where you want it to be.
Host:Exactly. Well, I mean, all this stuff that you’re talking about is going on in space, so as long as you have that coordination. And it’s a team effort, too. It’s not just one guy on the ground doing the work. I mean, you’re working with a decent team.
Tim Braithwaite: Right.
Host:When you’re doing these maneuvers. So that’s fantastic. But, you kind of mentioned– so going back to canadarm2, you mentioned it’s been up there since you said 2001?
Tim Braithwaite: Yup.
Host:And it’s 16 years of operation, which is awesome. Part of the spacewalk stat are– that we’re doing here in October are for maintenance, right? So it needs regular maintenance. So what’s some of the stuff that we’re doing over these spacewalks?
Tim Braithwaite: Well, even the maintenance system itself needs to be maintained.
Host:There you go.
Tim Braithwaite: So here we are, and that’s where we’re going to be this Thursday.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: The latching end effectors, the LEEs on canadarm2 have done all this heavy work over all these years. And what we had started to see a few years ago, maybe three years ago, is we had started to perceive some degradation in the LEE mechanisms and we were able to monitor that. We see with some precision the currents and the rates on the motors.
Host:Hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: And we could see from the telemetry data down from the arm that some of the mechanisms were sometimes a little bit sticky.
Host:Oh.
Tim Braithwaite: And we talked– studied that a lot.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: Trended the data and in 2015 that analysis lead us to have spacewalking astronauts go out and lubricate these mechanisms in the canadarm2 end effectors.
Host:Oh.
Tim Braithwaite: So the guys went out in spacesuits and they had– they took a wet lubricant. It’s sort of this gray goo.
Host:Mm-hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: And they were able to put that into the mechanisms that were exposed on the latching end effector to mitigate that stickiness that we had been starting to see.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: And that did indeed improve things. We saw some improvement right after that in both cases.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: But, in the case of LEE-A, we– there’s two ends of the arm. We simply call it A and B.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: And in the case of LEE-a, while there was some improvement it still was kind of going downhill and we could see that.
Host:Oh, okay.
Tim Braithwaite: And what we saw in august– I think it was august 22nd, we were going to walk the arm off to go– I actually forget what we were going to go do. We were going to walk off node 2 onto our mobile base system.
Host:Mm-hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: And the latches on the LEE-A actually stalled during the course of the grapple.
Host:Oh.
Tim Braithwaite: And that’s quite unusual.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: So there was a lot of discussion that evening on console and real time and they released it back off. We talked about it some more and decided, “you know what? We’re going to defer this task, we’re going to stay here on node 2 because this is where we need to be.” At that point I think it was just a couple of weeks away, we were going to unberth and release SpaceX dragon 12.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: Which was onboard the space station at that time.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: And handling the dragon vehicles– we actually don’t use those latches. We just use those snare cables.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: Which is very much like the shuttle arm used to work. So we decided to stay there. We really wanted to protect that schedule.
Host:Right. Get it out in time.
Tim Braithwaite: So the visiting vehicles can arrive and depart on schedule.
Host:Mm-hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: Did that, released the dragon. That went perfectly well. And since then– since we had been already talking about end effector maintenance we were already working with the space work experts here at JSC to start planning an end effector replacement. So that work was already going on.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: So when we had this latch stall with LEE-a, we sort of adjusted our plans, said, “okay, we’re going to go do LEE-a. We’re going to do it right away so we can get canadarm2 back up to full operating potential so we can go do everything that we need to do.”
Host:All right.
Tim Braithwaite: So that got scheduled in for this Thursday.
Host:All right. So LEE-a– is it being– is it a swap? Are you replacing it for a new latching end effector?
Tim Braithwaite: There is also part of our system– we have canadarm2, we have Dextre, we also have what we call the mobile base system.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: And this is a structure that rides up and down the space station truss on a little trolley called the mobile transporter.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: So that mobile base has four operating bases for the AMR, so the arm can walk onto it and go right down the truss.
Host:Cool.
Tim Braithwaite: But also, on the mobile base there is another latching end effector and it’s in fact an identical unit to the one that’s on both ends of canadarm2. We use that for temporarily stowing large items that we’re moving around outside.
Host:Hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: So if we need to do maintenance of something big–
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: –there have been a couple of times when the– when a pump package failed that was part of the thermal control system. And the pumps are big and they needed to be temporarily stowed before they could be deorbited.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: And we would store those on that end effector on the mobile base. So that’s a LEE. Although, it’s been in space since 2002, 15 years.
Host:Wow.
Tim Braithwaite: It’s actually only been used 15 times. So when we use it, it’s very important.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: But we actually only use it relatively rarely.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: So on average, once a year. So what we’ve got, looking at that end effector on the mobile base, we’ve got the ideal space latching end effector. Not only do we know that it made it up hill safely and it’s in space, we’ve also been checking it out once a year.
Host:So it is up to speed. You’re like, “eh, why don’t we just use this one.”
Tim Braithwaite: So we’re going to use that. So what we’re going to do this Thursday is we’re going to move the tip of the arm we LEE-a right next to where that mobile base end effector is.
Host:Right.
Tim Braithwaite: And the EVA crew are going to swap the two.
Host:There you go. Okay, so that’s a big part of the first spacewalk.
Tim Braithwaite: Right. And what that does is it restores canadarm2 to much improved operating potential. We’ve got a LEE-a that will then have working latches, we can go do– we’ve got orbital atk-8 coming right up.
Host:Yes.
Tim Braithwaite: I think it’s 0a-8.
Host:Oa-8, that’s right.
Tim Braithwaite: And we actually would like to have working latches for that because the Cygnus vehicles like power right after they’ve been captured. And to give them power the latches have to work.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: So we are eager to go restore that capability. We’ll then have this somewhat degraded end effector on the mobile base and a couple more spacewalks this month, but then at least one more in January. And we’re going to do a little bit of a shell game. We’re going to also swap out LEE-b off canadarm2, because that also– it’s not as degraded as LEE-a, but there’s also we’d like to move it around.
Host:Right.
Tim Braithwaite: We want to leave LEE-b on the mobile base as that end effector for stowing things.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: It is a little bit degraded, but good enough that we think it’ll probably last the rest of the program. If we only use it once per year, which has been our average.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: It’ll last for years. It’s like dog years. It’ll last a long time. And LEE-a we will actually take off and bring inside the space station.
Host:Huh.
Tim Braithwaite: And the two EVA– sometime in January, we’ll see the two spacewalking crew members bring this big oil barrel of a pack– an end effector package into the airlock with them. And we will actually bring it down to earth inside a dragon vehicle.
Host:Oh, it can fit where? In the trunk of in the pressurized?
Tim Braithwaite: Well, remember, the trunk burns up. It needs to come down on the inside or it doesn’t really come home.
Host:Oh, so it’s going to be coming in the pressurized part?
Tim Braithwaite: Right.
Host:Okay, very cool.
Tim Braithwaite: And we’re going to have that. It’s a big expensive package. We really don’t want to burn it up. So we’re going to go to all that trouble to bring it down, send it back to our prime contractor in Brampton, Ontario, is MacDonald Dettweiler.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: They are the experts and they are going to have the task of refurbishing this latching end effector that’s been in space for 16 years. And what a witness to the space environment and to space history this thing has been, right?
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: It’s been there for most of space station assembly.
Host:Right.
Tim Braithwaite: And all of this maintenance, exposed to the environment, all the atomic oxygen, micrometeorites, all the propellant from all the jets, all the loads that it’s experienced. And they’re going to sort of peel it back, refurbish it, and then return it to flight status. So we will have another end effector spare ready when we need it.
Host:Wow. All right. So you got it planned out? So you’ve got new end effectors coming on and you’re going to have refurbished end effectors there. So that’s pretty cool. How many end effectors total then are we talking about through the end of the life of the station? That was going to be–
Tim Braithwaite: Well, there are two on canadarm2, and we’re talking about swapping out both of those in the next few months.
Host:Right, right.
Tim Braithwaite: There’s one on Dextre, because when we put Dextre down there’s an end effector on the bottom.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: There’s this one on the mobile base I’ve been talking about.
Host:Right.
Tim Braithwaite: There is a– we’re using that one on the mobile base as a spare.
Host:Uh-huh.
Tim Braithwaite: There is another actual spare stored on the space station truss outside sort of in a box safe, waiting to be used. And that one will go onto canadarm2 in January.
Host:Yup, yup.
Tim Braithwaite: And we actually have another one on the ground right now that’s probably going to launch in a few months’ time.
Host:Hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: We call that our launch on need end effectors, so you need to have enough of these things so that they can fail and you have time to replace them before you need another one.
Host:Well, it sounds like a and b was it? Are the two that are on the arm right now?
Tim Braithwaite: Right.
Host:Sounds like they’ve been doing a pretty good job so far.
Tim Braithwaite: Sixteen years, given the complexity and, I mean, the harsh environment, and all they’ve accomplished, it’s actually amazing that they have lasted this long.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: I was on the program early on looking at those designs, we are pretty pleased that these things have lasted so long. We expected maybe we’d have to do maintenance like this earlier than we have. So no complaints.
Host:Absolutely. And it seems like you got a lot of plan b, c, d, all the way down too.
Tim Braithwaite: That’s the way we roll here in human spaceflight.
Host:Hey, that’s perfect, right? Because you’re saying, “oh, we need– this one’s not working as well as it could. Oh, we got a spare over here, and a spare over here, spare over here. We’ll take this one over here.” So that’s not bad. A while ago–not a while– just a few minutes ago you talked about it can move on this mobility unit, right? It can walk. That is kind of a unique thing, right? So when you’re thinking about a robotic arm, it’s not just an arm that’s on the side of the station and can grab things. This thing can move to different parts of the station. How does that work?
Tim Braithwaite: Well, the arm can walk end over end. That’s why we have an end effector at each end of the arm.
Host:Uh-huh.
Tim Braithwaite: One’s the base. The tip of the arm, just like the base, can reach another operating base and grapple it, engage, connect electrically.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: Power down, power up from the new base, and then let go and walk end over end.
Host:Wow.
Tim Braithwaite: And the mobile base system on the mobile transporter as I described has these base plugs on it. So the arm can walk onto there right out port or starboard to the extreme end of the truss even, do work out there.
Host:Yeah, wherever you need it.
Tim Braithwaite: Wherever it needs to be, and that’s another really cool enhancement over the shuttle arm system. When you looked out the aft– the payload bay windows on the shuttle, the arm was always there. The shoulder was always exactly in the same place on the port side of the vehicle. And this is a new system, it’s a new environment.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: And space station is a big complex structure. There’s all sorts of places you might need to be. And in fact, relatively recently, we even installed a base point on one of the Russian modules, what we call the FGB. So the forward most part of the Russian segment now has a power and data grapple fixture on it. And the arm can walk on there to reach even further back if it needs to and we’ve done some surveys from there.
Host:Oh, there you go. So power and data grapple fixture, that’s– when it’s walking it needs to grab onto one of those in order to get power and data so you can send the commands?
Tim Braithwaite: To be a base point, that’s right.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: It needs electrical power. The arm is all electric.
Host:Uh-huh.
Tim Braithwaite: They are dc electric motors–
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: –on each of the joints and each of the mechanisms on the end effector. And of course data, it seems like we don’t do anything without a computer these days. The arm has onboard computers that control each joint and each joint has a computer that controls the motor module.
Host:Yup, because if you send it a command you want it to do what you’re asking it to do.
Tim Braithwaite: Right. And also, those computers gather the information that we need to have insight into what the arm is doing and how the arm is doing.
Host:Yeah, there you go. Oh, well, that’s where you’re getting that data where you can find out, “oh, this is degrading a little bit and we’re going to have to fix it.”
Tim Braithwaite: Yeah, “that motor’s drawing a little bit more current than we thought. Let’s go take a look at that.”
Host:Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I mean, so now the Canadarm has been up there for 16 years, you’re talking about robotic arms that have been thought about since the ’70s, and then you started flying in the ’80s. This has a long history of robotic arms. Has any of the technology been brought down to earth in any way, shape, or form?
Tim Braithwaite: It has.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: And there are a number of applications and the ones I can think of right here are mostly medical.
Host:Hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: It’s possible to do very, very fine, even microscopic surgery with versions of robotic arms.
Host:Oh.
Tim Braithwaite: And the technology that that’s based on, as it turns out, is directly derived from the work that we’ve done on space station with canadarm2.
Host:How about that.
Tim Braithwaite: So there’s a system in that was designed in Canada called Neuroarm, which has done brain surgery and there’s a growing list of people who have been helped by that. There’s a smaller pediatric version called Kidsarm.
Host:Oh, wow.
Tim Braithwaite: And there is– let me think, there is a system called image guided autonomous robot, IGAR, which got some recognition. And that’s– it’s able to do breast cancer surgeries for very small procedures.
Host:Wow.
Tim Braithwaite: so this technology is proliferating.
Host:Yeah. I mean, so you pretty much just take the canadarm2, which is how long does it stretch? Fifteen meters is it? Or is it–
Tim Braithwaite: No, was it 17 or 18 meters, I think.
Host:Seventeen or eighteen? Oh, okay. I’m thinking 15, but okay. Yeah, 17 or 18 meters, you bring that down to a smaller scale in a way, right?
Tim Braithwaite: Well, and it’s not even just the physicality of it.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: It is the technology of controlling coordinated motion in very refined ways.
Host:Right. Right. I mean, very microscopic movements like you were saying.
Tim Braithwaite: Right.
Host:And is that– so you were talking about before this responsive technology where if you’re moving it can feel the turn and stuff like that. Is that part of it too?
Tim Braithwaite: I think a big part of it is the ability to operate the robot in an environment where you can guide it visually.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: Working inside– like, working CT scan environments where you have all of the sensors so you can really see what’s going on inside someone’s body and there’s the robot actually operating right there while the scan’s going on.
Host:Ah, okay.
Tim Braithwaite: But also, at a microscopic level. Because we humans– if you reduce everything to a small enough scale it’s actually difficult to control things that precisely. But the robot, if you gear everything down the robot can really help you with that.
Host:Oh, yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: So if– your hands may not tremble, but when you’re at the micron level your hand’s really trembling and you’re not even aware of it.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: But that’s the level of control that they’re able to provide with these microscopic brain surgery robots.
Host:How about that.
Tim Braithwaite: And that’s really helping people, and that’s exciting.
Host:That’s very exciting. I’m thinking about– the first thing that comes to mind is threading a needle with your hand, how difficult that is just out of scale. You get to that small and you start shaking and you can’t see.
Tim Braithwaite: Right.
Host:But if you get the instruments you can do it.
Tim Braithwaite: And you’re talking even smaller than that.
Host:Wow. Oh, yeah, you’re right, because microscopic.
Tim Braithwaite: Right.
Host:So we only have a few minutes left so I’ll kind of– we’ll leave off with this: what’s the future of robotic arms? Is there going to be a canadarm3? Or is there things you’re thinking about for missions beyond international space station?
Tim Braithwaite: Well, we are thinking about canadarm3.
Host:Okay.
Tim Braithwaite: And what we do in these programs, certainly what we did with canadarm2, is we looked at our experience on the shuttle.
Host:Mm-hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: And we took that operating paradigm and said, “okay, what did we learn? What more can we do?” And sure enough, if you look at canadarm2 it’s more complex, but it’s a much more capable system. We’re looking at what a canadarm3 could be. And one thing that we are hearing a lot about in our modern world is autonomy.
Host:Oh.
Tim Braithwaite: We hear a lot these days about self-driving cars.
Host:Yup.
Tim Braithwaite: Because the computer technology now exists where the computers can process, and make some of those decisions, and can do the take me from point a to point b.
Host:Right.
Tim Braithwaite: Whereas just even– even a few years ago, that wasn’t even conceivable.
Host:Mm-hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: We are starting to look at what it would take for to start introducing more autonomy into these sort of robots.
Host:That is exciting.
Tim Braithwaite: Right. And again, and we’re not talking about– I don’t need to name the movies, but I’m not talking about robots going crazy and acting independently.
Host:Sure.
Tim Braithwaite: It’s about– you can calculate the most efficient way to get from this arm position to this arm position, then you can grasp that grapple fixture, then you can change base.
Host:Mm-hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: And the ability, practically speaking, is there to go do that and we’re starting to look at how we might introduce that into a space environment.
Host:How about that. That’s pretty exciting– automatic.
Tim Braithwaite: And again, that’s an enhancement in terms of saving time. We’re already saving time for the astronauts because the ground is doing it. But now, we can actually save time so that the ground controllers don’t have to be there for every single step, every single command.
Host:Mm-hmm.
Tim Braithwaite: And indeed, these days, if we lose comm with the space station, if there’s what we call an LOS, a LOS of signal, period–
Host:Right.
Tim Braithwaite: –we have to sit and wait. However, what if you get your command in before you lose comm and the robot can be there waiting for you– at the end of its maneuver waiting for you when you come back in.
Host:Because loss of signals can be– can get upwards of tens of minutes. So you come back and it’s already part of the way through the job. That’s not bad.
Tim Braithwaite: It really depends on what’s going on, but yeah. And as you start to go further afield, if you’re talking about– well, even the moon, but certainly mars where the latencies, the radio delays are such that sending a command and then waiting to see that it completed correctly before you send the next one.
Host:Yes.
Tim Braithwaite: If the roundtrip for that is 40 minutes, then that’s really going to slow everything down. But, if you can tell your robot, “go move from here to there and check back with me when you’re done.” That’s just going to introduce a capability– it’s not just making it more efficient, it gives you a capability that you didn’t have before.
Host:How about that. That’s really exciting. Can’t wait. Is there a chance that canadarm3 is going to be on the international space station sort of thing?
Tim Braithwaite: No, I think– we are going to use the MSS, the mobile servicing system, and canadarm2 as sort of a test bed for that technology.
Host:Oh, okay.
Tim Braithwaite: We have this amazing environment where we have a monitored environment, we have things that need doing.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: We have the ability to maintain it because there’s astronauts. And also, sometimes we do robot self-maintenance. We have replaced a few of our own cameras with the robot, and that’s really cool.
Host:Yeah.
Tim Braithwaite: But we have this environment that is really ideal to develop some of that next generation exploration technology and we’re starting to look at that.
Host:Wow. Very exciting. All right, well, Tim, thanks for coming on the show today. It seems like a pretty decent kind of overview of robotic arms history, and capability, future. That’s awesome. Thank you very much.
Tim Braithwaite: It’s a pleasure to be here. There’s a lot going on.
Host:Absolutely. Well, so for the listeners, if you stick towards the end of podcast we’ll talk about– Tim and I kind of mentioned the spacewalks that have been happening, or that are going to happen here in October, so you can talk about that and where to go for questions and ideas. So thanks again, Tim.
Tim Braithwaite: Thank you.
[ music ]
>> Houston, go ahead.
>> I’m on the space shuttle.
>> Roger, zero-g and I feel fine.
>> Shuttle has cleared the tower.
>> We came in peace for all mankind.
>> It’s actually a huge honor to break the record like this.
>> Not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
>> Houston, welcome to space.
Host:Hey, thanks for sticking around. So today, we talked with Mr. Tim Braithwaite about robotic arms in space and we really wanted to talk about this topic because we have three spacewalks in the month of October and all of them have to do with in some way, shape, or form with dealing with the canadarm2 on the international space station. Two of them right now have already been completed. There was one on October 5th and another one on October 10th. The one on October 5th was the one that we talked about, me and Tim, in this episode where they replaced a latching end effector. And the the last one, they were actually using the lube that he also talked about to grease up the inside of the latch. Well, they have one more coming up and it’s going to be I guess at the time of this release will be next week on October 18th. So you can tune in and kind of watch what a spacewalk is all about, you can go on the international space station Facebook account. We’ll be doing a Facebook live throughout the whole thing, but you can also go to NASA TV or wherever you get NASA TV. I think it’s on Ustream as well. If you want to follow along, just kind of get the highlights of everything, we do everything on social media, so international space station Facebook account is a great place to get that information. Otherwise, you can go to Twitter, which is kind of like little snippets. You know Twitter. What am I telling you about Twitter for? And Instagram @iss. So you can use the hashtag #askNASA on your favorite to submit an idea for the podcast, or maybe during the spacewalk coverage you can ask a question and we’ll try to get to as many as possible. I know I’ll be one of the commentators for the spacewalks coming up. And we really try to answer some of those questions during the– during commentary so you kind of understand what’s going on. So please, ask those questions as it’s going on. Otherwise, you can submit questions for the podcast. Just put in– make sure it’s mentioned for “Houston, we have a podcast” HWHAP. Actually, that’s how I got that question from Jennifer at the beginning of the episode. I was– I’m searching for that stuff, so don’t think I’m not paying attention. So this podcast was recorded on October 3rd, 2017. Thanks to Alex Perryman– who always helps out with every episode– John Stoll, Dan Huot, and of course the public affairs officers, the communicators at the Canadian space agency. Thanks again to Mr. Tim Braithwaite for coming on the show. We’ll be back next week.