Houston: Two spacewalking astronauts attached 3.5 metres arms to the international space station s huge new robot today, preparing the giant machine for its handyman job on the orbital outpost.

The Canadian-built robot, named Dextre, will stand 4 metres and have a mass of 1,500 kilograms when it's fully assembled. It is designed to assist spacewalking astronauts and possibly someday take over some of the tougher chores, like lugging around big replacement parts.

The already challenging outing turned grueling as spacewalkers Richard Linnehan and Michael Foreman struggled to release one of the robot's arms from the transport bed where it had been latched down for launch. Two of the bolts wouldn t budge, even when the astronauts banged on them and yanked as hard as they could. They had to use a pry bar to get the arm out.

The other arm came out much more smoothly and quickly , paving the way for Linnehan to pull up Dextre's body 60 degrees, like Frankenstein rising from his bed. That was the ideal position for plugging in Dextre's gangly arms to its shoulders.

"You guys are both great working some big hurdles with trying to pry Dextre out from his (transport bed) home," astronaut Robert Behnken told the spacewalkers after they floated back inside the station. The seven-hour overnight spacewalk came close to being drastically altered or even delayed. For nearly two days, a cable design flaw prevented NASA from getting power to Dextre, lying in pieces on its transport bed.
Source : PTI