Space Station Gets Helping Hand

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, HOUSTON, March 18, 2008 — -- Dextre is done.

Astronauts completed construction of the giant robot during an overnight spacewalk at the International Space Station. Dextre now has tools that any guy with a well-stocked tool bench would envy.

The 12-foot-tall robot received pan and tilt color cameras to serve as its eyes. It also got a pretty nifty tool holder assembly with an extension for socket wrenches, manipulators and an offset tool that will allow it to turn bolts that are too deeply set to be easily grasped.

Dextre is no plumber, which would have come in handy after a pipe under the floor of the Space Shuttle Endeavour's middeck sprung a slight leak.

Cmdr. Dominic Gorie's plumbing skills are being put to the test. To stop the leak, Gorie wrapped the pipe in towels held in place by duct tape.

NASA has been testing Dextre all week, putting its new robot through its paces to see how well it responds to computer commands. Its 11-foot arms with their seven joints each were tested for starting and stopping ability.

Dextre will give the space station operators an additional 30-foot reach when attached to the station's robotic arm. It is remarkably nimble for such a huge robot, designed to pick up something as small as a phone book and as large as a phone booth.

Inside the space station, astronaut Mike Foreman told rookie spacewalker Bob Behnken, "Go get' em, Bam Bam, you have an appointment with Mr. Dextre."

Behnken is a muscular astronaut who has earned the nickname Bam Bam from his colleagues, who predicted he would use his muscle to finish the tasks on hand, and he did.

Behnken and veteran spacewalker Rick Linnehan spent the night on a grueling six-hour, 54-minute spacewalk to finish building Dextre, the $209 million robot that is one of Canada's contributions to the space station.

Dextre came up in pieces in the payload bay of the Endeavour and had to be assembled on orbit during three spacewalks.