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A Russian unmanned spacecraft Soyuz, with a humanoid robot sitting at the commander's headquarters instead of a cosmonaut, is due to take off on Wednesday in Kazakhstan (US time) for a test flight to check the ship's compatibility space with the new generation Soyuz-2.1a rocket. should start launching crews at the International Space Station next year.
Unmanned flywheel, the Soyuz MS-14 satellite should be launched from site 31 of the Baikonur cosmodrome at 23:38: 31. EDT Wednesday (8:38:31 GMT, Thursday at 8:38 am local time) to launch a two-day pursuit of the space station.
The Soyuz MS-14 satellite will be the first Soyuz ship to fly unmanned cosmonauts in 33 years. Officials from the Russian space agency Roscosmos have decided to launch the unmanned launch as a full test flight of the Soyuz-2.1a rocket with the Soyuz spacecraft.
The Soyuz-2.1a rocket variant has been launched a dozen times since 2004, including ten flights with freighter cargo freighters for replenishment missions to the space station.
But one of the supply ships Progress launched on a Soyuz-2.1a booster in April 2015 took an uncontrolled turn after being separated from the third floor of Soyuz. Russian engineers attributed this failure to a botched deployment of the Progress spacecraft from the third floor of Soyuz.
The Progress accident, in 2015, prompted the Russian authorities to use the first Soyuz capsule on board a Soyuz 2.1a rocket without anyone on board.
The Soyuz-FG variant currently used to send Soyuz crews to the space station is expected to retire later this year.
Another Soyuz-FG rocket remains in the inventory of Russia. Its launch, on September 25, should allow the Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft to launch into orbit with Commander Oleg Skripochka, NASA co-pilot Jessica Meir and flight engineer Hazzaa Ali Almansoori. the first person from the UAE to fly in space.
The launch of the Soyuz MS-15 Space Shuttle on September 25th is the last scheduled mission to take off from Site 1 at Baikonur, the same facility used during the launch of Yuri Gagarin during the first orbital flight of mankind in April 1961.
Starting next March, Soyuz crews will launch Soyuz-2.1a boosters from Site 31 in Baikonur, equipped for the new Soyuz-2 family.
Soyuz-2.1a upgrades include a modernized digital flight control system, which replaces the analogue guidance system of older Soyuz models, as well as improvements to engine injection systems.
After launching from Kazakhstan, the Soyuz MS-14 satellite will increase its altitude and match its orbit with the space station, preparing for docking with the Poisk module at 0530 GMT Saturday.
Instead of a crew, the Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft will carry a 1,450-pound (657 kg) cargo to the space station, including the Russian Skybot F-850 robot, a humanoid replacing a cosmonaut commander.
The Skybot F-850 will not handle any flight controls during the Soyuz mission, but sensors located on the robot's body will measure essential environmental parameters during the flight, including launching, docking and landing.
Alexander Bloshenko, scientific advisor in Roscosmos, said the Skybot F-850 robot will conduct experiments at the space station prepared by Russian engineers.
Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov will work with the Skybot F-850 after arriving at the station. Skvortsov will be able to communicate with the robot, according to Roscosmos.
Skybot F-850 will copy Skvortsov's movements during a series of tests in orbit. If the tests are successful, Russia could launch improved robots that can operate outside the space station, thus helping crews on space marches, or allowing cosmonauts to completely avoid exits in the space station. 39, space, said Bloshenko.
The Skybot F-850 robot is an evolution of the Russian robot series FEDOR, which engineers initially developed for rescue operations. Ground test videos showed the FEDOR robot pulling, lifting weights and driving a car.
The Russian Foundation for Advanced Research Projects, with a similar role to that of DARPA in the US government, led the development of the FEDOR robot.
Skybot F-850 is not the first robot to get to the space station.
NASA's Robonaut 2 experimental robot was launched on the station in 2011, but the robot came back to Earth last year and needed repairs. Robonaut 2 could return to the space station later this year.
Roscosmos has created a Twitter account for the Russian robot ready to go to the station, with tweets composed from the point of view of Skybot F-850.
In a tweet, it was written that the conditions inside the Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft were difficult. The robot can "barely get into the cargo in the cabin" of the spacecraft, the tweet said.
The Soyuz MS-14 satellite will remain at the space station for more than 13 days. The spacecraft – with Skybot F-850 – will be removed from the Poisk module at 14:13. HAE (18:13 GMT) on 6 September at 17:35 for a parachute assisted landing in south-central Kazakhstan. EDT (21:35 GMT).
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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.
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