NASA isn't saying much. The problem may be temporary:
Recently, the astronauts on board the International Space Station performed a routine "walk-off" maneuver with the large, 58-foot-long robotic arm attached to the orbiting laboratory.
The robotic arm, known as Canadarm2 because it was supplied by the Canadian Space Agency, is something of a modern engineering miracle—it can effectively move around the exterior of the large space station like an inchworm because both ends are essentially identical.
However, after this particular walk-off maneuver, the robotic arm, along with the mobile transporter that guides it along the main truss of the space station, engineers noted some issues with operations.
As of Sunday evening, according to two sources, work was underway to determine whether this problem was due to a data or software issue or the robotic arm or mobile transporter hardware itself. (Update: NASA provided the following statement at 2 pm ET on Monday).
The Canadarm2 is currently operating as expected and is being used for inspection of the Crew-12 Dragon spacecraft as part of predeparture procedures. Non-robotic components associated with the mobile transporter on the truss, which the arm is often attached to, have exhibited some communication errors. NASA is troubleshooting and investigating the errors prior to the next transporter movement from its current worksite (Worksite 6). In parallel, NASA and SpaceX are working to ensure there is no GPS interference affecting Dragon's docking capability to the station's forward port as a result of the transporter's current position. Joint teams are actively conducting the analysis and expect to resolve the issue before the Crew-13 launch. NASA will provide additional updates during the Crew-13 prelaunch news conference on Wednesday, Sept. 30.
Designed and developed by the Canadian space corporation MDA, the Canadarm2 launched to the International Space Station in April 2001 on Space Shuttle Endeavour, and it has since served as a critical component of the orbiting laboratory. Its nominal design lifetime was 15 years, so it has been operating for more than a decade beyond this point.
The arm has a mass of nearly two metric tons and can handle payloads of up to 116 tons.
For much of its lifetime, the arm was essential in getting supplies to the International Space Station. The first version of SpaceX's cargo vehicle, as well as Northrop's Cygnus and Japan's HTV-X transfer vehicles, was designed to be grabbed by the arm when it got close to the station and then be moved into a berth at the facility.
Modern versions of Dragon, both crew and cargo, now undergo autonomous docking, as does Boeing's Starliner crewed spacecraft.
If NASA were unable to use it to berth spacecraft, there could be serious implications for cargo missions, especially with SpaceX planning to retire the Dragon vehicle within four years. NASA's other principal cargo supply vehicles, Cygnus and HTV-X, cannot dock with the station.
The robotic arm is also used for moving large hardware around the exterior of the station, such as large cooling pumps, in preparation for astronaut spacewalks. NASA and its partners could probably work around this loss of functionality, but it would certainly make operations more difficult.
The potential loss of the robotic arm, even if temporary due to software issues, serves as a reminder that the space station is approaching its 30th anniversary. Much of the facility has been operating in orbit for decades, in hard vacuum, beyond its planned lifetime. So far, most of the aging process has been graceful, but that does not necessarily mean this run of good fortune (and preparation) will continue.
NASA plans to eventually replace the International Space Station with one or more privately developed space stations, but this contracting process has not gone particularly smoothly. What happens if the bedrock of NASA's space-based operations for the last quarter of a century suddenly becomes a bedrock no longer?
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02, @01:36PM (2 children)
Protesting the tariffs
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02, @04:50PM
"Software Update... Do Not Turn Off"
(Score: 5, Funny) by ls671 on Friday October 02, @06:47PM
Nah, NASA is simply waiting until it's renamed Americarm to put it back on-line.
Everything I write is lies, including this sentence.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Saturday October 03, @12:37AM
This looks AI generated because its not highlighting whats cool. The arm goes back to the 80s so you can compare to pre AI era actual human generated articles from the 00s like:
https://web.archive.org/web/20041129001731/http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/uofaengineer/article.cfm?article=28369&issue=28299 [archive.org]
What makes the arm cool is the limit for mass couldn't be tested on the ground because its not strong enough to move itself in 1G. I assume they did weird styrofoam floatation tests on earth.
You'd think you can run infinite mass really slowly, but AFAIK its a software limit WRT the limit, because according to the article, at least as of 2004, it was running open loop and the software has to have "some" minimum rate to declare a failure so in theory it would move 232 tons just as well as 116 tons but it would be half speed and the half speed would piss off the software "because it would never move that slowly unless it was horribly broken so better power down for safety". In theory with a software patch it could run infinite mass just really slowly.
To give some context the entire ISS weighs vaguely 450 tons. There is no "the" ISS because they're constantly adding and removing stuff but "less than 500 tons to within maybe 10%" seems about right. Most modules weigh "like less than 20 tons" the fatty Naoka Multi Purpose Lab is AFAIK the heaviest and its less than two dozen tons. This is an interesting engineering rule of thumb thing, every module on the ISS weighs MUCH than a rail car, America has world class freight rail (shit passenger rail but I digress) and IIRC the magic number is freight rails and freight cars are built up to 143 tons in the USA. More than that is a special issue, less than that is fine on any class 4 or better track (essentially, "real railroad rails" or better)
Another oddity is one on the space shuttle had a ejection seat thing which may or may not be present on the station because in theory it could prevent the shuttle from closing the cargo bay door or maybe smash into the coolant loops and otherwise hurt the astronauts. I'd assume for similar safety reasons if the arm went bonkers and tried to smash station windows in they'd leave the "ejection seat" thing on the arm so it can't hit stuff if it has no leverage because it was ejected, but who knows?
So anyway yeah the article I linked to above was written by a human and the new article isn't even remotely like it which implies to me the new article is AI.