Science Opinions

HOUSTON (AP) - Now that the space station’s new robot is fully assembled, astronauts prepared to attach the giant machine directly to the orbiting outpost for the first time on Tuesday.
Astronauts Richard Linnehan and Robert Behnken went on a spacewalk Monday to add a tool belt and two cameras that will serve as the robot’s eyes as it helps maintain the station.
The robot, called Dextre, flew in pieces to the station aboard the shuttle Endeavour. It has been assembled over the course of three spacewalks. So far, the 12-foot robot and both of its 11-foot arms have checked out fine.
On Tuesday evening, astronauts plan to use the space station’s mechanical arm to attach Dextre to the outside of the station’s U.S. lab, Destiny.
The spacewalkers’ robot-related chores went smoothly, but Behnken had some trouble attaching a science experiment to Europe’s Columbus lab. He couldn’t get the suitcase-sized experiment to latch firmly onto the platform.
Behnken ended up carrying the experiment back to Endeavour’s payload bay, repeatedly expressing his disappointment.
“You gave it your all, Bob,” Linnehan said. “No one could have done any better.”
Experts on the ground will spend the next couple of days trying to figure out what’s causing the problem and how to fix it or work around it.
Astronauts participating in one of the mission’s final two spacewalks may end up tying down the experiment and its twin instead of bolting them, said Zebulon Scoville, the lead spacewalk officer for Endeavour’s mission.
Despite the problem, Scoville said he couldn’t have been more pleased with the spacewalkers’ work.
“You’re making rock stars question their job choice,” Scoville radioed Behnken before asking him several questions about the troublesome fitting.
Five spacewalks are planned for Endeavour’s 16-day flight, which is about halfway done. While shuttle astronauts have performed five spacewalks before on a single flight - on trips to the Hubble Space Telescope - it will be a record for a shuttle-station mission.
In addition to delivering Dextre to the space station, Endeavour’s crew dropped off a storage compartment for the Japanese lab that will fly up in May. The astronauts not involved with the spacewalks - including Japanese astronaut Takao Doi - continued setting up the storage compartment in preparation for the arrival of the lab, which is named Kibo. The word is Japanese for hope.
On the Net:
NASA: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov

via AOL

The Canadian robot, named Dextre, needs power to heat its joints, limbs and electronics. The $200 million machine could be damaged if left cold for days.

Canadian engineers initially suspected the trouble could be with a timer, and they created a software patch to fix it.

But Pierre Jean, Canada’s acting space station program manager, said experts now believe the problem stems from a design flaw in the temporary cable that is supposed to provide power to Dextre until it is fully assembled.

If that’s the case, Jean said, Dextre should have no trouble powering up once the astronauts finish putting it together and install it on the station next week.

To be sure, the crew plans to hook up Dextre to the space station’s robotic arm later Friday. If the problem is with the temporary cables, Dextre should receive power from the arm. If it doesn’t, engineers will have to find another fix.

“I think at this point in time we’re pretty confident that by 10 o’clock tonight we should have the answer to this particular question,” Jean said.

In the worst case, spacewalking astronauts could go back out to disassemble Dextre and leave it in pieces at the space station. That way, the robot would not have to be heated.

The crew still ran the software patch to see if it helped, but it didn’t.

While spacewalkers Richard Linnehan and Garrett Reisman worked on the robot, two of their crew mates used a robotic arm to remove a Japanese storage compartment from shuttle Endeavour’s cargo bay and attach it to the space station. Watch astronauts begin spacewalk »

It’s the first part of Japan’s massive Kibo lab, which means “hope.” Shuttle Discovery is scheduled to deliver the main part of the lab in May.

The spacewalkers oohed and aahed as the compartment glided slowly through space on the robotic arm.

“That’s fantastic,” Reisman said.

via CNN