HOUSTON, TEXAS — Twenty-five years after Canadarm2 arrived on the International Space Station (ISS), SpaceQ toured NASA’s Mission Control and Johnson Space Center (JSC) to catch up on a busy orbital year.
The premise of our trip was a NASA and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) event to celebrate Canadian astronaut Josh Kutryk’s long-awaited launch to the ISS, now expected to take place on SpaceX Dragon Crew-13 no earlier than Sept. 12. And in late June — the day before Canada Day, in fact — Canadarm2 had a successful orbital repair by astronauts to replace a “wrist joint,” a normal wear-and-tear item already accounted for with an in-orbit spare.
NASA will keep CSA-funded robotics running on the ISS for as long as the complex is in operation, which will be at least 2030. Canadarm2 was not only on the critical path for ISS construction, but today — as SpaceQ readers are well aware — it is used to capture and berth cargo ships as well as to do orbital maintenance, oftentimes using a group of roughly a dozen certified controllers at CSA headquarters in Longueuil, Que. near Montreal. These latter uses were only developed much later in ISS operations.
MDA Space’s Canadarm2, Mobile Servicing System and Dextre handy robot all play critical daily roles in space station operations, the CSA said. “Without our robotic systems, the space station would not have been built. Now it is absolutely essential for the maintenance and the resupply,” Mathieu Caron, CSA’s director of astronauts, life sciences and space medicine, told Canadian reporters in the viewing area of the ISS Mission Control room on Aug. 4.
Aside from keeping the space station functional, these robotics have a special function for the CSA. They allow for long-duration astronaut seats and science, the last time being with David Saint-Jacques’ roughly seven-month mission in 2018–19. (Kutryk was supposed to fly on Boeing Starliner two years ago for his own long-duration stay, but delays with Starliner eventually spurred the SpaceX switch.)
While we were visiting JSC Aug. 4, the status of successor project Canadarm3 at Gateway was still being discussed now that NASA is focusing its work on the lunar surface; by the end of that same week, however, CSA and MDA Space said the plan is to continue their contract and repurpose the robotics for Artemis lunar surface operations.
On site, SpaceQ asked Caron about ISS robotics “lessons learned” for Canadarm3 operations, whether they are performed in microgravity or on the surface. Caron said the best approach is to maintain flexibility, because operations can change dramatically; when CSA’s Chris Hadfield and NASA’s Scott Parazynski installed Canadarm2 in April 2001, he said, the vision was to have astronauts doing most of the robo-driving.
Today, that work is mostly done on the ground, thanks to not only software updates, but training of operators that is constantly updated in a virtual environment to show the configuration of antennas and other moveable items on the space station. “Basically, we have to build enough flexibility in the system so that you can rise to the challenges,” he said.
In the meantime, Canadarm2 — now freshly maintained — still has years of activity ahead of it. Caron pointed to the ROBO station at the far left of Mission Control, which was unstaffed during our morning visit because a robotics operator in Houston was not on shift. The Expedition 75 astronauts were clearly active on screen, flying back and forth in an ISS corridor between tasks. Those two events — the empty ROBO station, and the working astronauts — are not coincidental.
As long as the astronauts aren’t needed on console for high-precision operations like berthing a spacecraft, “we tend to do robotics operations when the astronauts are sleeping,” Caron explained. Often, he added, operations with Dextre, which can include maintaining small equipment or replacing tiny components, require millimetre-level precision.
“Having the astronauts on the treadmill, for instance, will interfere, and will introduce vibrations that mess up your ability to do that,” Caron said. Astronauts are tasked with about two hours a day for exercise activities; while some of that time includes setup and take-down of equipment, that lengthy period is needed to keep them healthy when microgravity affects bones, muscles and vessel systems. There is a treadmill on the U.S. side of the station and at least historically, on the Russian side as well; with a typical crew of seven, all that exercise time adds up.
“So, for that reason, you can’t tell astronauts, ‘Please don’t exercise,’ right?” Caron said. So as the astronauts are on sleep shift, Canadian robotics will pivot around the space station as sentinels and maintainers. The astronauts then get a briefing upon wake-up about where to look for robotic shifts on the space station. “It’s their house. We’re moving a construction crane around their house,” Caron said, noting it is a courtesy to let the astronauts know where everything is.
Canadians who are not agency astronauts are doing more than just controlling ISS robotics from the ground. More and more, they’re assuming CAPCOM duties. CAPCOM is traditionally done by astronauts, and it is still preferred to be that way, but the mix of a 24/7 position with the demands of international astronaut training has meant that NASA opened up the console to non-astronauts in recent years to ensure good staffing.
Royal Canadian Air Force Major Erin Edwards was assigned to JSC in 2023 as the first Canadian Astronaut Coordination Officer. She applied for the position and — according to a Canadian government release in 2024 — found out about her successful posting from Artemis 2 astronaut Jeremy Hansen himself, just three months before she needed to report for duty.
Edwards, a helicopter pilot by training, recently wrapped up that three-year posting, having received CAPCOM training as well. NASA, CSA and the Canadian military were impressed. Her promotion to major took place just a few weeks ago, with Kutryk participating in the ceremony in the same viewing room in which media were standing on Aug. 4.
“She was a really excellent CAPCOM,” Flight Director Diane Dailey, also in the Mission Control viewing room with media, said in response to a SpaceQ question about the program (which is continuing with a new officer). “I think that military training really was prevalent. Her helicopter background was great.”
Dailey added that Edwards also assisted with helicopter training with crews, who would likely find it useful for applications such as landing on the lunar surface. “I see this as a beacon of what can happen in international collaboration,” added Dailey of the arrangement.
Following the nearly one-hour discussion in Mission Control, reporters were then brought to JSC Building 9 to see mockups of ISS hardware from the outside, as well as glimpses of some newer Commercial LEO Destination concepts from afar.
Caron, walking with the group, pointed to a diagram of the ISS to explain the movements of robotics around the space station as well as where the orbital spares for Canadarm2 parts are stored. Caron clarified that the spare storage is “not specific” because as items shift around the space station, so too can the spares. But in general, you can find these pieces aboard the external storage platforms.
NASA lists three platforms on its website: on the Destiny module, Quest airlock and the P3 truss. “Those are robotically compatible,” Caron said, meaning Dextre can grasp items to move it around. Continuing his tour of the diagram, he also pointed to the Orbital Boom Sensor System used with the original Canadarm later in the shuttle program.
The arm would grasp the boom to scan under the space shuttle for broken or damaged tiles, as a new procedure after the loss of seven astronauts aboard Columbia in 2003. As the space shuttle approached retirement, a boom was shipped to the station for permanent storage during shuttle mission STS-134 in May 2011.
Speaking about the boom brought up another memory by Caron, a former robotics operator. During one of the most famous ISS spacewalks, which was engineered in 2007 in just days while a visiting shuttle crew was on board, NASA astronaut Scott Parazynski (one of the tallest members of the astronaut corps at that time, at about six feet six inches) rode on top of the boom. The boom was grasped with Canadarm2, riding aboard the mobile servicing system deployed at the edge of its track, to reach a solar array that tore during deployment.
“I still talk to my therapist about it,” Caron said, likening the arrangement of robotics to “like putting a chair, on the couch, on a ladder, and stuff — and putting the tallest guy that was on board and then reaching as far as we could.” The “cufflinks” that Parazynski and the other astronauts fashioned on the ISS, with guidance from Mission Control, helped the astronaut essentially “sew” the torn panels back together while perched on the robo-stack.
It’s not often that space station crews need to venture that far, but the improvised fix continued to show up in occasional astronaut pictures — the fix clearly holding up well — many years after the 2007 repair. “Yes, our repairs are still under warranty,” Parazynski joked on what was then called Twitter in 2016, after the cufflinks were visible near NASA astronaut Kate Rubins during an EVA.