Endeavour's Canadarm coming home

The Canadian robotic arm on one of NASA's space shuttles is heading back north after the shuttles retire, CBC News has learned.

Each of NASA's three shuttles is equipped with a Canadarm, designed and built in Canada. After the shuttle program ends with the final flight of Atlantis in June, NASA plans to keep therobotic armson Discovery and Atlantis for itself, but the Canadarmon the Endeavour has been earmarked for Canada.

Canadian science museums are already making the case for why their particularfacility is the optimal one for displaying the arm.

The Canadarms on each of the shuttles have been used to set satellites into orbit, retrieve others for repair, support spacewalking astronauts and conduct inspections of the space shuttles.

The one on the Endeavour is the very first, deployed in 1981.

Rob Godwin, space curator for the Canadian Air and Space Museum at Downsview Park in Toronto, believes the Canadarm should return to its birthplace.

"It should come home to where it was conceived and designed and built," said Godwin, whose museum is housed in the original home of SPAR Aerospace Ltd., the company that built the Canadarm."Most of the people who worked on that device are still alive and still live in this area."

SPAR Aerospace waslater purchased by Richmond, B.C.-based MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates.

Renald Fortier, curator at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa, thinks his large facility would be a better fit for the 15.2-metre arm.

"We have to put it somewhere where people would see it and would be able to appreciate the size of it," he said.

Frank Florian, director of public programming for Telus World of Science in Edmonton, believes the arm should travel across the country "just to really, again, showcase science and technology here in Canada."

TheCanadian Space Agencyhas hinted it may keep the arm at its headquarters in St-Hubert, Que., CBC's Paul Hunter reported.