Milestone-Proposal talk:The Space Shuttle Remote Manipulator System

Advocates’ Checklist

1. Is the proposal for an achievement rather than for a person? If the citation includes a person's name, have the proposers provided the required justification for inclusion of the person's name?
2. Was the proposed achievement a significant advance rather than an incremental improvement to an existing technology?
3. Were there prior or contemporary achievements of a similar nature? If so, have they been properly considered in the background information and in the citation?
4. Has the achievement truly led to a functioning, useful, or marketable technology?
5. Is the proposal adequately supported by significant references (minimum of five) such as patents, contemporary newspaper articles, journal articles, or citations to pages in scholarly books? At least one of the references should be from a peer-reviewed scholarly book or journal article. The full text of the material, not just the references, shall be present. If the supporting texts are copyright-encumbered and cannot be posted on the ETHW for intellectual property reasons, the proposers shall email a copy to the History Center so that it can be forwarded to the Advocate. If the Advocate does not consider the supporting references sufficient, the Advocate may ask the proposer(s) for additional ones.
6. Are the scholarly references sufficiently recent?
7. Does the proposed citation explain why the achievement was successful and impactful?
8. Does the proposed citation include important technical aspects of the achievement?
9. Is the proposed citation readable and understandable by the general public?
10. Will the citation be read correctly in the future by only using past tense? Does the citation wording avoid statements that read accurately only at the time that the proposal is written?
11. Does the proposed plaque site fulfill the requirements?
12. Is the proposal quality comparable to that of IEEE publications?
13. Are any scientific and technical units correct (e.g., km, mm, hertz, etc.)? Are acronyms correct and properly upper-cased or lower-cased? Are the letters in any acronym explained in the title or the citation?
14. Are date formats correct as specified in Section 6 of Milestones Program Guidelines? Helpful Hints on Citations, plaque locations
15. Do the year(s) appearing in the citation fall within the range of the year(s) included at the end of the title?
16. Note that it is the Advocate's responsibility to confirm that the independent reviewers have no conflict of interest (e.g., that they do not work for a company or a team involved in the achievement being proposed, that they have not published with the proposer(s), and have not worked on a project related to the funding of the achievement). An example of a way to check for this would be to search reviewers' publications on IEEE Xplore.

Reviewers’ Checklist

1. Is suggested wording of the Plaque Citation accurate?
2. Is evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Plaque Citation?
3. Does proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement?
4. Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed?
5. Have proposers shown a clear benefit to humanity?

In answering the questions above, the History Committee asks that reviewers apply a similar level of rigor to that used to peer-review an article, or evaluate a research proposal. Some elaboration is desirable. Of course the Committee would welcome any additional observations that you may have regarding this proposal.

Submission and Approval Log

Submitted date: 20 April 2025
Advocate approval date:
History Committee approval date:
Board of Directors approval date:

Two Expert Reviewers -- John Vardalas (talk) 17:42, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

This Dr. John Vardalas, the Advocate for this Milestone proposal. Two expert reviewers have agreed to comment on the proposal: One from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the other from NASA. One review is in. When both are in, I will post them.

First Review of of Proposal -- John Vardalas (talk) 16:40, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

The following review is from Paul Backes, Ph.D. He is Robotic Manipulation and Sampling Group Supervisor Mobility and Robotic Systems Section, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. Paul Backes’s review consists of answers to a set of questions. Below his review is posted verbatim. ‘'

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This is an easy review since development of the SRMS was a major milestone in space manipulation. I particularly appreciate it since I have spent 37 years at NASA as an expert in space manipulation and appreciate how far they extended space manipulation technology in development of the SRMS.

Questions:

1 - Is the suggested wording of the Plaque Citation accurate? If not, please explain the inaccuracies.

Yes, the suggested wording of the plaque citation is accurate.

2 - Is the evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Plaque Citation? Do the references support the narrative?

Yes, the evidence presented in the proposal is of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the plaque citation. The references support the narrative.

3 - Does the proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement?

The proposed milestone represents the significant technical achievement of the development and operation of the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (SRMS), also called the Canadarm. The SRMS was a revolutionary achievement in advancement of robotic manipulation for space environments. It had capabilities that far surpassed prior space manipulation systems. It provided vital capabilities for the Space Shuttle in manipulating and transferring heavy payloads, supporting astronauts working outside the Shuttle, and conducting inspections and repairs. Many significant technical challenges had to be overcome in the development of the SRMS.

4 - Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed?

There were no similar or competing achievements at the time of the development of the SRMS. The SRMS was a first-of-a-kind space manipulation system for operation in microgravity accurately manipulating heavy payloads.

5 - Have the proposers shown a clear benefit to society?

A benefit to society was clearly shown. The capability of the SRMS was necessary for the Space Shuttle to perform many of its most critical missions, including manipulating and transferring heavy payloads, supporting astronaut extravehicular activity, and conducting inspections and repairs. The SRMS was used to deploy numerous spacecraft including the Hubble Space Telescope and was also used to grapple the Hubble Space Telescope in a later servicing mission and to support the astronauts as they performed servicing of the telescope.

Second Expert Review of Proposal -- John Vardalas (talk) 19:05, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

The following review is from Ken Podwalski, Executiver Director, Space Exploration, Gateway Program Manager, Canadian Space Agency (CSA). This Review consists of answers to a set of questions. Below is his review posted verbatim

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1 - Is the suggested wording of the Plaque Citation accurate? If not, please explain the inaccuracies.

Text is excellent; only minor tweaks to recommend: “On 11 April 1981, NASA formally accepted the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (SRMS) or Canadarm developed by SPAR Aerospace (now MDA Space) and the National Research Council of Canada. By providing a safe and reliable way to manipulate and transfer heavy payloads, support astronauts working outside, and conduct inspections and repairs, the SRMS Canadarm played a key role in the Shuttle Program and follow-on programs,and revolutionized human spaceflight.”

You could also consider changing “key role” to “game-changing”… which is accurate.

2 - Is evidence presented in the proposal of sufficient substance and accuracy to support the Plaque Citation? Do the references support the narrative?

“The Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (SRMS) or Canadarm was developed by SPAR Aerospace (now MDA Space) and the National Research Council of Canada. By providing a safe and reliable way to manipulate and transfer heavy payloads, support astronauts working outside, and conduct inspections and repairs, the SRMS Canadarm played a key game-changing role in the Shuttle program and revolutionized manned human spaceflight. Designed for a life of 10 years or 100 missions, over the course of a 30 year program on five different Space Shuttles, the Canadarm never failed to achieve a mission objective, no matter how complex, e.g. multiple Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions. The SRMS was designed to have a life of ten years or 100 missions. During the course of the 30-year Shuttle program, no SRMS failed in flight or failed to achieve a mission objective. Next generation Canadarms are now considered critical to human-tended platforms. Canadarm 2 was being used aboard the to assemble the International Space Station in Low Earth Orbit, supported nearly 200 spacewalks, with external maintenance work conducted regularly by Dextre, a dexterous two-armed robot; and, Canadarm 3 is being designed and built are planned for use aboard the Lunar Gateway that is currently under development.”’'

3 - Does the proposed milestone represent a significant technical achievement?

Absolutely

4 - Were there similar or competing achievements? If so, have the proposers adequately described these and their relationship to the achievement being proposed?

Nothing would directly challenge this achievement; it is historical.

5 - Have proposers shown a clear benefit to humanity?

The text provides a solid case. I would only add that the Canadarm has served as an inspiration to Canadians, serving to drive Canada’s technological boundaries higher and connect youth with STEM programs and ambition. It served as a symbol of innovation and has secured a critical role for Canada in space exploration programs allowing participation at an international level. Canada’s participation in the International Space Station program has demonstrated the ability of humanity to work cooperatively even in the most complex geopolitical contexts.