Russia’s Nauka module set to integrate with International Space Station this week: What we know so far

Russia’s Nauka module: On the International Space Station was a Russian module called Pirs that was used by spacecraft as a docking port as well as by cosmonauts going for a spacewalk as a door, but this module was detached from the ISS on Monday. However, Russia’s Roscosmos does have a replacement – a much larger module called Nauka that would serve as the country’s main research facility on the floating laboratory, according to a report in IE. Nauka was launched from Kazakhstan on July 21, and if everything goes as planned, it will be integrated with the ISS this Thursday.

Nauka, the report added, is a 42-feet-long module weighing about 20 tonnes, and is meant to serve primarily as a research facility. Even though the ISS – which is a joint effort of NASA of the US, Roscosmos, JAXA of Japan, CSA of Canada and ESA of Europe – had originally planned to launch the Nauka way back in 2007, several technical issues kept causing delays.

‘Nauka’ is the Russian word for ‘Science’ and it is the biggest space lab sent by the country to outer space so far. It is also carrying some cargo to the ISS – including another oxygen generator, another toilet, an ESA-built robotic cargo crane and a spare bed. It had been launched aboard the Proton rocket, which is the most powerful rocket that Russia currently has.

Once it reaches ISS on Thursday, it would be attached to the Zvezda module, the report said, adding that the latter is a critical module since it supports the life support systems of the ISS, and also is the structural and functional centre of ROS – Russian Orbital Segment.

Meanwhile, Pirs as well as the cargo ship would get burned while entering the atmosphere of the Earth, and the country is expecting them to fall harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean.