The Wrist That Broke
On a January morning in 2026, Chris Williams floated outside the International Space Station, tethered to nothing but protocol and a safety line, staring at a broken joint. The Canadarm2—17 metres of Canadian engineering that had assembled, maintained, and upgraded the orbital laboratory for more than two decades—could no longer bend its wrist . The joint had seized. Without it, the station's primary means of manipulating cargo spacecraft, moving equipment, and assisting spacewalkers was effectively paralysed.