Russia yesterday launched an uncrewed rocket carrying a life-size humanoid robot that is to spend 10 days learning to assist astronauts on the International Space Station.
Named Fedor, for Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research, with identification number Skybot F850, the robot is the first ever sent up by Russia.
Fedor blasted off in a Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft at 6:38am from Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz is to dock with the space station tomorrow and stay until Sept. 7.
Photo: AFP / ROSCOSMOS / Space Center Yuzhny / TsENKI
Soyuz ships are normally crewed on such trips, but no humans are traveling this time to test a new emergency rescue system.
Instead of cosmonauts, Fedor was strapped into a specially adapted pilot’s seat with a small Russian flag in his hand.
“Let’s go. Let’s go,” the robot was heard as “saying” during launch, apparently repeating the famous phrase by first man in space, Yury Gagarin.
The 1.8m silvery robot weighs 160kg.
Fedor has Instagram and Twitter accounts that describe it as learning new skills, such as opening a bottle of water. In the station, it is to trial those manual skills in low gravity.
“That’s connecting and disconnecting electric cables, using standard items from a screwdriver and a spanner to a fire extinguisher,” Roscosmos State Corp for space activities director for prospective programs and science Alexander Bloshenko said in televised comments ahead of the launch.
“The first stage of in-flight experiments went according to the flight plan,” the robot’s account tweeted after reaching orbit.
Fedor copies human movements, a key skill that allows it to remotely help astronauts or even people on Earth carry out tasks while they are strapped into an exoskeleton.
Such robots would eventually carry out dangerous operations such as space walks, Bloshenko told the RIA Novosti state news agency.
On the Web site of one of the state backers of the project, the Foundation of Advanced Research Projects, Fedor is described as potentially useful on Earth for working in high-radiation environments, demining and tricky rescue missions.
Onboard, the robot is to perform tasks supervised by Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, who joined the International Space Station last month, and is to wear an exoskeleton in a series of experiments later this month.
Roscosmos director-general Dmitry Rogozin earlier this month showed photographs of the robot to Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying it would be “an assistant to the crew.”
“In the future we plan that this machine will also help us conquer deep space,” Rogozin said.
Fedor is not the first robot to go into space.
In 2011, NASA sent up Robonaut 2, a humanoid robot developed with General Motors with a similar aim of working in high-risk environments.
It was flown back to Earth last year after experiencing technical problems.
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