The new modules of the ISS in Russia will be protected with the same fabrics as those used in bullet proof vest

13:30 to 07.04.2019(updated 13:41 07.04.2019) Get a short URL

Russia's Science Power and Prichal Nodal modules are expected to be delivered and attached to the International Space Station in 2021 and 2022, respectively, and will later be used to form the first building blocks for the country's new space station.

The new scientific and energy modules to be attached to the Russian segment of the ISS will receive anti-meteorite protection based on bulletproof vests of national design, according to Space Engineering & Technology, the official journal of the Russian company Energia.

"The basalt and bulletproof vest fabrics from which the buffer shield structure is based are comparable in terms of the Nextel and Kevlar fabric properties used in the shielding of NASA modules," writes the article written. by the developers of the material.

The paper pointed out that NASA engineers had been actively involved in creating a shield for the first module of ISS Zarya, with much of the Russian design module being built with US funds in the late 1980s. 90. Similar protection was provided for the Nauka multi-purpose laboratory module, an ISS research, docking and loading module planned for a long time by Roscosmos, which is expected to be put online in the mid-1990s. -2020.

Russia is expected to build the orbit-based (Russian acronym OPSEK) orbital assembly and experimentation complex, a space station in low earth orbit in the 2020s. The station will use Russian components of the ISS , which should be removed when the international station will shut down in the mid-2020s. In addition to performing the functions of a traditional space station, OPSEK is envisaged as a staging area for the Assembly of inhabited spaceship elements performing missions on the Moon, Mars and other planets.

The ISS has long been protected by several layers of Nextel and Kevlar bulletproof vests, which cover the station to protect it from meteorites and other forms of space debris.

Last week, India successfully tested a new anti-satellite weapon, destroying a Microsat-R satellite in low earth orbit. The trial sparked international criticism of the use of weapons in space and raised concerns about the operation of the ISS, with the remaining fragments of the satellite and missile posing a threat, albeit "very unlikely", for the operations of the station. , according to Russian space experts.