Canadarm3 will fly to NASA’s future Gateway space station in five years or so on the back of a lucrative new design contract drawn from previous program funding, Canadian space officials vowed.
The robotic arm, key to building the Gateway space station that will play a key role in NASA’s Artemis program’s series of manned lunar missions, has been awarded a $730 million ($999.8 million Canadian) design and test contract. on Thursday (June 27) by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). This will allow Canadarm3 to launch no earlier than 2029.
“We are entering an exciting period where Canadarm3 will take shape and come to life on our production floor,” Mike Greenley, CEO of robotic arm builder MDA Space, said in a Canadian government statement about the announcement. . “Canada’s participation in the Artemis program reinforces and expands our national and industry leadership as a new era of space opens.”
“Canadian robotics has played a critical and game-changing role in the assembly and maintenance of space systems and scientific research for decades. Our expertise is well-regarded and sought-after internationally,” CSA president Lisa Campbell said in the same statement.
CSA is sending the first Canadian around the moon, Jeremy Hansen, no earlier than 2025 as part of the NASA-led Artemis 2 mission. That’s because of the agency’s Canadarm3 contribution and moon-related efforts, first announced in 2019. More CSA Gateway missions will follow — and a possible Canadian moon landing in the future.
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Canadarm3 is the next-generation successor to the hugely successful robotic series active in space for more than 40 years, including Canadarm for the spacecraft and early International Space Station (ISS) missions, and Canadarm2 performing maintenance work and spacewalks on the ISS. MDA Space is the current program manager for the Canadarm along with Dextre, a robotic maintenance vehicle also aboard the ISS.
The contribution of the Canadarm series to space cannot be overstated. The original Canadarm was the primary vehicle that reached and abducted NASA and the European Space Agency’s Hubble Space Telescope during five maintenance missions, allowing the famous telescope to continue operating nearly 35 years after its launch in 1990. Canadarm2 helped build the ISS, along with Canadarm. Then, as commercial cargo missions were developed to deliver supplies to the ISS, Canadarm2 was successfully repurposed for robotic capture in orbit while still doing spacewalks and maintenance work.
While CSA’s core budget is modest — it plans to spend about Cdn$350 million ($255 million USD) in fiscal year 2024-2025, for example — the Canadian government has funded multibillion-dollar Moon and ISS contracts in a series of contracts extra. allocations as of 2019. (CSA also works regularly with the Departments of Environment and Defense to pool budget resources on satellites and other projects.)
The MDA Space contract follows funding already announced for Canadarm3. In 2019 the Canadian government pledged “$2.05 billion [$1.5 billion USD] over 24 years of Canada’s participation in lunar initiatives, including the construction of Canadarm3,” according to CSA materials.
More funding for the moon came in March 2023, amounting to Cdn$1.43 billion (US$1.05 billion), but focused on a lunar utility vehicle for astronauts on the moon and a group of Canadian science components at Gateway.
The new Canadarm3 contract, covering phases C and D, will include final design, construction, system assembly, integration and testing, MDA Space said. MDA Space has already received smaller contracts for earlier Phases 0, A and B.
Canadarm3 aims to use artificial intelligence for a degree of autonomous maintenance and monitoring on the Gateway, which is essential since the station will only be manned at times. The wing system includes two wings, in fact: a small “dexterous” wing building in Dextre technology, along with a longer limb measuring about 28 feet (8.5 meters). A small case is also included to transport tools around the Gateway.
As is typical of major space projects, Gateway has faced delays and the delivery of Canadarm has also been delayed. Gateway was expected to be operational in 2026, along with the robotic arm, when Canadarm3 was first announced in 2019.
That said, the arm is already driving new business in the Canadian space community, particularly with MDA Space. The Toronto-area company just launched a series of commercial robotics products based on Canadarm technology, after selling related robotics to both Axiom Space and the Starlab consortium (including Voyager Space and Nanoracks) for their proposed space stations.
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