Endeavour, Houston, we see a nominal MECO Welcome to space.
Hello there Simply Space fans! It's been a while since my last video and that's because
I've been working on development of my new Android game "Manual docking" I've got
a short video to break the hiatus for you. Here's a look at what I think is a
very cool and very interesting mechanism. It's the Canadarm latching end
effector. Canadarm was the robotic arm extending from the space shuttles
payload bay to move astronauts around on EVAs, grab satellites like Hubble for
servicing and assemble the modules of the International Space Station. Today
Canadarm 2 is in service on the International Space Station for all
sorts of tasks, most notably for capturing and berthing cargo supply
craft like Dragon 1, Cygnus and HTV. The very end of the Canada arm is what I
want to show you, it's called the latching end effector and it's the
actual grabbing part of the arm. The latching end effector can grab onto
objects that have a grapple fixture grapple fixtures look like this
they all have a flat base plate, a grapple pin with a small ball on the end
and on the base plate around the pin there are these three ramped bars to
provide additional rotational stability once grappled. And there is a small
targeting pin to help astronauts controlling the arm align it using a
camera. The latching end effector features a carriage with a rotating ring
inside it. This ring has three snare wires attached to it
such that when the ring rotates it closes the snare. The rest is pretty
simple, to grapple an object the latching end effector is moved over the grapple
pin, the ring rotates closing the snare over the pin then the snare carriage
retracts into the latching end effector pulling on the ball at the end of the
grapple pin until the snare wires are taught and there is a good interface
between the latching end effector and the base plate. You can see that the
three ramps that I mentioned earlier are positioned in three notches in the
latching end effector to help stabilize the grapple fixture rotationally.
The grapple fixture you see right now would be an example of a flight
releasable grapple fixture or FRGF. It's the simplest type of grapple
fixture and it's the type that Dragon 1 uses. It's for when you don't need to
hold on to something for too long and you don't require connecting power and
data to it. But when you do you will need a PDGF, that's a power and data grapple
fixture. These are more advanced grapple fixtures that are actually
used to attach Canadarm 2 to the ISS, you see Canada arm to has a latching end
effector at both ends. PDGFs have these four cutouts in the base plate
with flaps over them and inside them are electrical connection points
that Canadarm 2 can interface with.
once the grappling like we've seen so far is finished, latches from the latching end effector
will extend out and latch into these cutouts on the PDGF, then connectors will
extend and connect into the power and data sockets located inside the cutouts
There are PDGF grapple fixtures located at a variety of places on the US segment
of the international space station. This is very useful as it allows Canadarm 2
to be positioned at any of them as required. If you didn't already know
about grapple fixtures and the latching end effector, I sure hope you found this
quite enlightening because it's a really cool mechanism. If you're a fan of Simply
Space I'd highly encourage you to consider supporting me over on Patreon
where you can get access to our exclusive discord community, early
behind-the-scenes renders and preview animations and early access to my game
"Manual Docking" Anyway if you enjoyed the video be sure to check out the space
shuttle's payload and I'll catch you later.