One meter eighty to sixty kilograms, here are the dimensions of Fedor, the first Russian humanoid robot sent Thursday, August 22 to the International Space Station (ISS). It is aboard a Soyuz rocket - the only model of a Russian launcher capable of sending a crew into space - that the machine makes its journey. He should arrive at his destination on Saturday.
Fedor, also called Skybot F850 according to his identification number, was not baptized thus by chance: his English transcription (Fyodor in Russian) is in fact the acronym for "Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research" ("Object final experimental research and demonstration "). This robot with a silver anthropomorphic body will join the Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov on the ISS, before leaving on September 7th. During the ten days spent on the station, he is supposed to "perform five or six tasks" that "are secret", said Evgeny Dudorov, the head of the creative society of said robot, to the Russian news agency RIA Novosti.
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Вы, наверное, думаете, что я очень сложно устроен? И, конечно, правы 🙂 но не во всем. Например, аватар - костюм, который надевает оператор - соединяется с компьютером при помощи USBкабеля. А я получаю информацию от него через Ethernet. 💻 ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ # SkybotF850 #SkybotFEDOR 🚀 # СоюзМС14 # Роскосмос # МКС # роботФедор # космос # Федорворосмосе # замнойнезаржавеет #roscosmos #skybot #robot #space
A publication shared by Фёдор (@ skybotf850) on August 19, 2019 at 7: 51 PDT
Already famous on social networks
It is known, however, that he is able to imitate the movements of Man, such as opening a bottle of water. Fedor has indeed accounts on social networks, like Instagram or Twitter, since last July, where it is possible to follow his apprenticeship. Alexander Blochenko, director of programs of the Russian Space Agency (Roskosmos) also said he was able to handle a screwdriver or keys, in an interview with the daily Rossiskaïa Gazeta.
Мой корабль "Союз МС" отправляют на заправочную. Заправка завтра. Со мной планируют провести еще один цикл проверок. Пока всё по плану. Пуск стоит на 22 августа. pic.twitter.com/nAO9wPVcGe
FEDOR (@ FEDOR37516789) August 8, 2019If Fedor is the first Russian robot sent to space, several humanoids have already been put into orbit by other countries. In 2011, NASA was shipping Robonaut 2 into space, also to help astronauts aboard the ISS. Failed in 2014, he was repatriated to Earth in 2018. In 2013, Japan also sent his robot, Kirobo, along with Koichi Wakata, the first Japanese commander of the station. He came back to our planet 18 months later.
A robot supposed to restore the coat of arms of Russia
In a meeting with Vladimir Putin last August, Roskosmos director Dmitry Rogozin said: "In the future, we are counting on this machine to conquer deep space". Indeed, it is envisaged that Fedor and its future declinations will be able to carry out missions dangerous for the Man, namely exits in the space for example.
A promise that is reminiscent of Russia's recent failure in terms of space conquest: last October, an engine problem on a Soyuz rocket in the direction of the ISS forced the crew back into emergency, barely two minutes after takeoff. Corruption scandals in the space sector were also headlines last May, after the flight abroad of the Director General of the Institute for Research in the construction of space equipment Yuri Iaskin. An audit had just been launched within his company, and he "feared the discovery of malpractices", according to the Russian daily Kommersant.