Nauka Module UPSC | What Is Nauka Module ?

Nauka Module UPSC | What Is Nauka Module ? | Why In the News ?

News : The Russian Space Agency Roscosmos, launched its biggest space laboratory named Nauka to the International Space Station (ISS).

• Nauka was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 21 using a Proton rocket.
• It is integrated with the ISS on July 29.

What is Nauka Module ?

• Nauka, meaning “science” in Russian, is the biggest space laboratory Russia has launched to date.
• It will replace 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.
• Nauka will serve as the country’s main research facility on the space station.
• Nauka is 42 feet long and weighs 20 tonnes.
• 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).
• 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 ISS.

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What is the International Space Station?

• A space station is essentially a large spacecraft that remains in low-earth orbit for extended periods of time.
• The ISS has been in space since 1998.
• It is a result of cooperation between the five participating space agencies that run it: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe), and CSA (Canada).
• The ISS circles the Earth in roughly 93 minutes, completing 15.5 orbits per day.
• The ISS serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which scientific experiments are conducted in astrobiology, astronomy, meteorology, physics, and other fields.

Other Space Stations

• China has launched an unmanned module “Tianhe” of its permanent space station that it plans to complete by the end of 2022.
• India is also planning to launch its own space station by 2030, joining the league of US, Russia, and China to an elite space club.

Source – Indian Express