Crew arrives at Cape Monday.
It is an advanced version of the nimble robotic arm that has flown on nearly half of NASA's space shuttle missions over the past two decades. The station's robotic arm was designed to reach all but the most remote corners of the orbital outpost as the station grows to an area larger than a football field. Canadarm2 is equipped with shoulder, elbow and wrist joints that mimic and exceed the flexibility of the human arm. Eventually, the new arm will be equipped with a hand-like fixture that features two mechanical fingers to give it even more dexterity. Though it weighs less than 2 tons, the device can hoist more than 250,000 pounds, the equivalent of a fully loaded space shuttle orbiter and four times what its less capable robotic cousin can hoist.