Nauka

Nauka

Subject: Science and Technology

Context: Russia’s space agency Roscosmos will be attaching a significantly larger module called Nauka, which will serve as the country’s main research facility on the space station.

Concept:

Pirs

• Pirs, a Russian module on the International Space Station (ISS) used as a docking port for spacecraft and as a door for cosmonauts to go out on spacewalks, was on Monday detached from the 22-year-old floating laboratory.
• Pirs, meaning “pier” in Russian, a considerably smaller structure that was only used as a docking port for Russian spacecraft and allowed for cosmonauts to enter or leave the ISS for spacewalks.
• Pirs was pulled away from the ISS using a Progress MS-16/77P cargo ship, which had remained docked to the module since February.
• it will be replaced by , Russia’s space agency Roscosmos’s larger module called Nauka,
• It will serve as the country’s main research facility on the space station
• It is a pathbreaking collaborative effort between five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe) and CSA (Canada).

Nauka

• Nauka, was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 21 using a Proton rocket, is scheduled to be integrated with the ISS on Thursday.
• Nauka, which is 42 feet long and weighs 20 tonnes, was supposed to be launched as early as 2007, as per the ISS’s original plan.
• Nauka meaning “science” in Russian is the biggest space laboratory Russia has launched to date, and will primarily serve as a research facility
• It is also bringing to the ISS another oxygen generator, a spare bed, another toilet, and a robotic cargo crane built by the European Space Agency (ESA).
• This new module was sent into orbit using a Proton rocket the most powerful in Russia’s space inventoryon July 21, and will take eight days to reach the ISS
• On the ISS, Nauka will be attached to the critical Zvezda module, which provides all of the space station’s life support systems and serves as the structural and functional centre of the Russian Orbital Segment (ROS) (the Russian part of the mammoth floating laboratory.