Ground Engineers Reason Dextre Had Flawed Parts
With the latest new reports giving the gigantic robot “Dextre” more popularity than it has ever had in its entire “robotic” life, reports are saying that the reason Canada’s robot has not worked well since entering space territory recently. Apparently, engineers on the ground had put in the wrong circuitry, which created a roadblock in power and data to reach Dextre at the International Space Station. Last Friday, the cable design flaw required the flight controllers to design another plan in order to get Dextre’s joints and electronics going.
At the very beginning, the engineers had thought that a timer might have been the culprit, which would only require a simple computer software patch—which did not work, so obviously that was not the problem. The space shuttle Endeavour had delivered the robot to the International Space Station, lying in pieces on the transport bed, and by Thursday it was attached to the exterior of the orbiting outpost. Not knowing who was at fault, either or both, the Canadian Space Agency and NASA’s preflight testing was unable to catch the problem on the ground. This is because the circuitry between the cable and the ground equipment is a perfect match on the ground, but in space they are different.
In order to resolve the problem at the ISS, Mission Control had instructed the astronauts to attach the ISS’s robot arm to Dextre late Friday night in order to get any type of power going. This was because the cable is located in Dextre’s pallet, also called a transport bed—an area that astronauts are putting the robot together in. The disadvantage of the massive $209 million robot is that it cannot be assembled or tested without any power to heat its joints and electronics.
The good news is that the heat shield on the Endeavour did not malfunction during the flight, and the flight was considered successful. And the second moonwalk was successful, as both veteran astronaut Richard Linnehan and rookie partner Michael Foreman ended their seven-hour plus second moonwalk at 2:57 a.m. EDT/0657 GMT early Sunday morning. Hopefully, throughout the rest of the day testing will be accomplished and everything will be fine for ol’ Dextre, affectionately referred to as “Frankenstein”.
This entry was posted on Sunday, March 16th, 2008 at 10:19 am and is filed under Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
