The Chinese Manned Space Agency (CMSA) recently released footage of the massive robotic ar of China's Tiangong Space Station as it rises behind the Tianhe module and reaches out to find a docking port in the foreground. The giant robotic arm measures 33.5-foot-long (10.2 meters).
The panoramic camera D attached to the Tianhe core module captured the footage of the giant robotic arm as it "crawls" along the outside of the spacecraft. The core module was launched to China's space station last April.
A model of China's Tiangong space station is seen at the Apsara Conference, a cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) conference, in Hangzhou, in China's eastern Zhejiang province on October 19, 2021.
Massive Robotic Arm Help in Space Missions
Prior to the recent footage of the robotic arm at Tinagong Space Station, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported last year that the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation released an animation on May 18, 2021, showing how the robotic arm they constructed would work in Tiangong Space Station.
Almost a year later, the recent video was released to showcase the robotic arm's ability. According to Space.com, the robotic arm has been used in many operations, including assisting astronauts with extravehicular activities or during spacewalks and conducting checks on the systems and apparatus of the spacecraft.
Moreover, station operators and astronauts of Tiangong Space Station have used the arm to grasp or maneuver the Tianzhou 2 cargo spacecraft that arrived at the station in 2021.
The Chinese space agency said that the Tianhe robotic arm will be used to move new modules that are expected to arrive in the space station this year. These modules will be relocated from a frontal docking port to lateral ports to complete the T-shape of the space station.
A previous report of Space.com showed a 47-minute operation of the robotic arm in which the crew and its operators tested the procedures and equipment needed for the addition and movement of larger modules. The large robotic arm on China's space station successfully grasped and maneuvered Tianzhou 2 cargo ship to practice for future modules that will visit the Tiangong Space Station.
That was the first time that the robotic arm was used to assist a module dock to the space station as it was usually used to help astronauts conducting spacewalks.
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Canadarm2 of the International Space Station
China's Tianggong Space Station is not the only spacecraft in low-Earth orbit with a robotic arm. The International Space Station was installed with a similar robotic arm in 2001.
According to the Government of Canada, Canadarm2 can also travel across the ISS using fixtures built outside the space station. It can also handle heavy payloads, like China's oversized robotic arm, and assist the crew during their spacewalks. Canadarm2 is an improvement of the original Canadian robotic called Canadarm that operated for 30 years for NASA's fleet of Space Shuttles from 1981 to 2011.
Canadarm2 was designed and built to feature bigger size and more durability to handle larger payloads and innovative end-over-end mobility. It is tasked to perform station maintenance, move supplies, equipment, and astronauts, and perform "cosmic catches" by grappling visiting vehicles to the ISS.
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