Robot frozen in space

Mission specialist Rick Linnehan works on the Canadian robot, named Dextre. Photograph: NASA TV/AP

A $200m (£100m) robot at the international space station was today paralysed and waiting for a software fix to reanimate it.

The Canadian robot, known as Dextre, is designed to help astronauts avoid difficult and dangerous spacewalks for repairs to the space station. But today it was immobile because of a problem getting power to its joints.

The machine, which is nearly 3.7m long and weighs 1.5 tonnes, needs heat to keep its limbs and electronics working in space. Engineers from the Canadian Space Agency suspect the problem is caused by timer software and are planning to beam up a fix to make the robot active.

Astronauts on the space shuttle Endeavour began a 16-day mission on Tuesday, which includes transporting Dextre to the international space station and getting it working. The robot was transported in nine pieces and the software problem emerged as the astronauts assembled it yesterday.

If the problem cannot be fixed, the same astronauts may have to endure another spacewalk to disassemble the robot, which could otherwise be damaged if it remains without power on the outside of the space station.

Mike Suffredini, NASA's space station programme manager, said he was confident the problem could be resolved fairly quickly.