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Abstract

NASA is moving ahead with the sole-source procurement of a Canadian robot to service the Hubble Space Telescope, gaining confidence the International Space Station (ISS) technology can perform all of the tasks shuttle-launched astronauts were scheduled to do before the Columbia accident changed everything. The U.S. agency is negotiating with MD Robotics, a MacDonald Dettwiler unit located in Brampton, Ontario, for a version of the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) the company developed for the ISS. The SPDM would be the business end of a throwaway module designed to replace batteries and gyroscopes, pull old instruments and install new ones before plunging to a targeted reentry over the Pacific.