Topic covered:
Awareness in space.
FEDOR
What to study?
For prelims and mains: Key objectives and significance of the mission.
Context: Russia has launched an unmanned rocket into space.
Key facts:
- It is carrying a life-size humanoid robot that will spend 10 days learning to assist astronauts on the International Space Station.
- Known as FEDOR, which stands for Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research, the Skybot F-850 is the first humanoid robot to be sent to space by Russia.
- The robot’s main purpose it to be used in operations that are especially dangerous for humans onboard spacecraft and in outer space.
- FEDOR, who is the size an adult and can emulate movements of the human body, has apparently embraced his mission, describing himself as “an assistant to the ISS crew”.
Significance:
- Fedor copies human movements, a key skill that allows it to remotely help astronauts or even people on Earth to carry out tasks while the humans are strapped into an exoskeleton.
- Fedor is described as potentially useful on Earth for working in high radiation environments, demining and tricky rescue missions.
Background:
Fedor is not the first robot to go into space.
In 2011, NASA sent up Robonaut 2, a humanoid robot developed with General Motors that had a similar aim of working in high-risk environments.
In 2013, Japan sent up a small robot called Kirobo along with the ISS’s first Japanese space commander.
Sources: the Hindu.
