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Canada’s robot arm on the International Space Station is a major milestone.
MDA Space’s Canadarm2 will celebrate its 50th cosmic capture no earlier than August 5, when the Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo ship docks with the International Space Station (ISS) with thousands of pounds of experiments, supplies and food for the Expedition 71 astronauts. the canada. The Space Agency (CSA) announced today (2 August).
Cygnus will launch to the ISS no earlier than 11:29 a.m. EDT (0329 GMT) on August 3, and you can watch the mission here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA+, formerly NASA Television. If Cygnus launches on time, it will be picked up by Canadarm2 and dock with the ISS on August 5 at approximately 3:55 a.m. EDT (0755 GMT). Coverage will begin at 2:30 am EDT (0630 GMT) on NASA+.
Canadarm2, managed by MDA Space under CSA funding, was launched into space for the first time on April 19, 2001 on space shuttle mission STS-100. Mission astronaut Chris Hadfield became the first ever CSA astronaut to install the arm, celebrating the milestone by playing the Canadian national anthem in space while jokingly referring to fellow astronaut Scott Parazynski (of NASA) as “honorary Canadian.”
The first hand-held spacecraft capture occurred on September 17, 2009 when it captured Japan’s HTV-1 (“HTV”, a series of now retired cargo spacecraft, which stood for H-II Vehicle Transfers). In the past 15 years, Canadarm2 has anchored a range of spacecraft between SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon and Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus.
Canadarm2 is part of a series of Canadian robotic arms based on generations of telescopic tube technology seen in space samples from extendable antennas to the lunar legs of the Apollo program, according to “Cadarm and Collaboration” (Elizabeth Howell, ECW Press, 2020.)
Canadarm was first flown in space on November 12, 1981 during the STS-2 shuttle mission by Spar Aerospace and the National Research Council of Canada (the government council that managed astronauts before the CSA was established in 1989). Canadarm has been used for spacewalks, several Hubble Space Telescope missions and some impromptu maneuvers such as knocking an ice plug off a frozen shuttle drain line, according to NASA.
Canadarm’s success in space allowed the NRC, and then CSA, to pay for astronaut seats on the shuttle because the robotic arm provided a net benefit to NASA’s activities in orbit. (Marc Garneau aboard STS-41G was the first Canadian astronaut, then the NRC, in October 1983).
Related: Canadian astronaut Artemis 2 found its lunar mission seat with ‘potato salad’
MDA Space (then MDA) acquired the space robotics division of Spar Aerospace in 1999, according to the National Post. MDA Space’s Canadarm2 has been in operation since 2001, starring in a complex and near-emergency spacewalk with Parazynski in 2007 in which he repaired a torn solar panel with adaptive tools.
Canadarm2 generally helped build the ISS along with Canadarm, and is still visible in ISS maintenance spaceways. MDA Space launched Dextre, a robotic assistant funded by the CSA, in 2008 for more sensitive ISS maintenance tasks.
In recent years, the Canadarm2 team has gained so much trust with NASA that many tasks are now authorized to be performed in ground control facilities at the CSA headquarters near Montreal, Quebec. And CSA was invited to join Artemis in 2019 by providing a new robotic arm, Canadarm3. MDA Space has received a series of Canadarm3 contracts and is finalizing its design for an expected 2029 launch to support NASA’s Gateway space station on the moon.
NASA was keen to say that the CSA was known for its reliability in robotics, Podwalski told Space.com in 2023. Robotics is a strategic expenditure by the space agency with an annual value of a paltry $300 million ($413 million CAD ) her. budget compared to NASA’s $25.4 billion in 2025. Apart from space, robotics can be reused for medical and mining needs in remote areas of Canada, making it another reason to invest in the technology.
Canadarm3 funded CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen’s lunar orbit aboard the Artemis 2 mission, making him the first Canadian to leave low Earth orbit. Its 2025 mission with three NASA astronauts will be the first in a series of expected CSA Artemis missions to Gateway and possibly the lunar surface itself.
Ken Podwalski, the CSA’s executive director of the Gateway program, has led Canada’s space robotics for most of his career. He was involved in the negotiations for the Hansen seat, which took four years to obtain as both NASA and CSA policy priorities had to align on the matter, and to secure funding.
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In an interview, Podwalski compared the CSA’s robotics to an incredible “potato salad” created to complement other main dishes at a festival.
“Everyone is expecting Canada to bring the potato salad,” Podwalksi told Space.com 2023, shortly before Hansen’s seat was announced on April 3. And he said it was possible to build other moon landings from there: “The potato salad gets you in the door, no problem […] and it does not prevent you from bringing anything else with you. You are now part of the party. Now is a good time to bring other things up.”
To be sure, the CSA has other means of funding beyond its annual budget: it partners with other Canadian government agencies and industry to stretch its dollars further, for example. In recent years it has also received billion-dollar infusions of one-off government funding for Artemis.
Other lunar contracts include the CSA’s funding of a mini-rover for science and a utility rover for the Artemis astronaut cargo, as well as a series of moon-related technologies specifically focused on lunar science, astronaut health and proper food in deep space.
