Hi, I'm Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger.
Currently we are in the lab of
the International Space Station,
which is one of the original
modules of the U.S. segment.
It used be the biggest, but now the JEM
(Japanese Experiment Module) is the biggest
module on the International Space Station
and we have a whole section up front
that makes this quite a large facility.
This is where, currently,
we're doing our robotics.
The Space Station arm is much more
versatile than the Shuttle's robotic arm.
It's longer.
It has extra joints; and I'll
talk more about those joints.
And it also has the ability to move on the
Mobile Base System, back and forth on the truss,
and to do what we call a "walk-off"; which
is to go from one power data grapple fixture
to another power data grapple fixture.
And basically act like a little inchworm;
grapple one; release the other; grapple again.
The station arm has a shoulder, but that
shoulder looks exactly like the wrist.
In other words - at one end
is exactly like the other
and both are able to do Roll, Pitch and Yaw.
That makes it so that the arm
can basically go in a big 360.
The elbow, unlike my elbow
can actually go all the way -
flip through the straight and
come back on the other side.
Now this robotic workstation uses a lot
of monitors because there are not windows
that you can do your robotics out of.
We also use computers - some of
them are used for our procedures,
some are used for additional views and some are
used for a computer program that is basically
like a virtual reality machine of
what the Space Station looks like,
so we can use it as a situational awareness.
Well, from here you have your hand controller
which, again can do pitch, roll and yaw.
And you have your translational
hand controller which can go out
and in, side to side, and up and down.
There's different modes like we
talked about; you can fly it manually,
you can fly the station arm in "operator
commanded modes" that are computer programmed.
You can fly single joints -
so many of the same things.
But you do all of that from
right here on the computer,
other than pushing buttons like we did before.
A lot of our routing of cameras
can be done on the ground.
But you can also route cameras from here
and from right here; this is primary
and that would be our backup place.
Again, we have ways to "safe"
the arm with brakes.
And we have ways to select different joints,
so again you're using switches over here.
It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you
today about robotic arms that are used here
on the International Space Station.
For me and for all of my colleagues
to fly, we had to take a lot
of math classes, a lot of science, engineering.
And I hope that if you want to fly in space or
whatever you want to do, that you work hard;
pursue your passion and remember
that in school it's really important
to study math, science and technology.
Have some fun at our website at nasa-dot-gov;
look in the education section under "Robotics"
and I think you'll just have a
joy when you are doing robotics.
Take care.
