The Canadarm By: Dave Eddie

It is as long as two telephone poles, and has six joints, roughly corresponding to the joints of a human arm, controlling the "roll," "yaw," and "pitch" of the arm. The word "Canada," along with a red maple leaf, is proudly tattooed on its long, stringy white "bicep," and another on its "forearm."

Its real name is the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (SRMS), but we all know it as the Canadarm, and it's Canada's most significant contribution to the space program. While it may seem a minor contribution to some, it is a crucial, subtle, and beautiful piece of engineering.

NASA took a chance trusting one of the most important aspects of its new shuttle program to a relatively untested Canadian engineering team in 1975, and it has paid off in spades. Among its impressive attributes is the ability to capture a free-floating payload in a zero-gravity environment. It is extraordinarily sensitive and can be moved slowly over a distance of a few millimetres to capture a tiny object or very quickly across a distance of several metres.

It has been used for everything from knocking ice off the fuselage of the Orbiter to fixing the Hubble telescope. And it has been instrumental in space assembly, including that of the international space station.

Following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, in 2003, in which the shuttle disintegrated on re-entry, resulting in the death of all seven souls onboard, the arm has been used to check hull integrity on re-entry.

Over the course of more than 50 missions and after nearly 7,000 orbits around the earth it has never—not once—malfunctioned.

The "arm in space" is one of Canada's greatest engineering achievements. And an expression of the best of Canada's soul: not flashy, not ostentatious, but useful, dependable, and willing to reach out and lend a strong but sensitive hand wherever one is needed, no matter how far-flung.

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