International Space Station To Get A Robotic Arm

Aug, 2021 - By WMR

The arm is equipped to handle weight of up to 8,000kg that to from both outside and inside of the space station.

The International Space Station will be provided with its third robotic arm capable of ‘walking’ all on its own in the Russian orbital outpost category. After a Russian Proton-M rocket is launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the new European arm is on its way to the ISS. Space is completely hostile to humans, and the humans need to live within the pressurized hulls of a spacecraft and the heavy constraints of extra vehicle mobility units commonly referred to as a spacecraft.

The ISS has been provided with two robotic small arms provided by the Canadian and Japanese space Agencies in order to assist the ageing space station, capture incoming spacecraft and help astronauts on their trips beyond the airlock. On July 21, 2021, a third European-fueled, robotic arm has been launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 14.58 CEST and is now entering the orbiting laboratory for the new Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module. This newest addition is the first robotic arm to serve the Russian ISS section and the first one to ‘walk’ across the outermost layer of the spacecraft. In the middle, a flexible ‘elbow joint’ connects the 11m European Robotic Arm (ERA), which is almost fully symmetrical in structure.

The wrist connectors on each side of the robot are capable of interacting, pairing and data transmission with different payloads. While the new Nauka module is assigned to be the main operating base of ERA, owing to the flexibility provided by its seven motorized joints, the robotic arm also can handle the whole station. ERA stretches out to one of the grabbing fixtures located across the Russian area in the outer hull with its ‘free hand’ and anchors itself to move it. It can then update its original ISS connection and process is repeated to move through the outpost. It is capable to handle the loads of up to 8,000kg and can move with accuracy in only 5mm.