Meet Dextre, the International Space Station's Robotic Handyman
| Full Name | Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (which is why I'm called "Dextre" for short!) |
|---|---|
| Birthday | March 16, 2008 (That's the day I was assembled on board the International Space Station (ISS) on by spacewalkers Richard Linnehan and Mike Foreman.) |
| Occupation | Space handyman and guinea pig for testing new robotics technologies |
| Location | Here, there and everywhere on the ISS |
| Employer | Canadian Space Agency (CSA) |
| Built by | MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA) in Brampton, Ontario |
| Height | 3,7 metres (12 feet, or about as high as two humans!) |
| Width (across the shoulders) | 2,37 metres (7,7 feet) |
| Arm length (each) | 3,35 metres (11 feet) |
| Mass | 1560 kg (3440 lbs) |
| Education |
I think I began my education at the School of Hard Knocks! I had a bit of a start when I first came to auto-cognizance: I woke up on the ISS while zooming around the Earth at almost 28,000 km/h at 350 km in altitude! But I didn't have much time to take in the sights since I had to get to work right away. Like any newborn, I had to learn to see properly, be able to tell my left hand from my right, and figure out why I was hearing voices in my head (it turned out to be the crew of the Space Station and mission controllers on the ground!). I was lucky, though, since I had almost all the information I needed to get up-to-speed quickly. Now, whenever I have to learn something new, it just takes me a minute or two and *blink,* I get it and am ready to go. Otherwise, I get on-the-job training. My mentors are all the astronaut spacewalkers who have gone before and have laid out the path for robots like me. |
| Claim to fame | I'm the most sophisticated space robot ever built (blush!) |
| Pet peeve | Waiting for Mission Control to say, "Dextre, we have a problem..." |
| Aspiration | Be the grand daddy for all future dexterous space robots. |
| Most likely to | Arm wrestle with a spacewalking astronaut! (Just kidding!) |
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