Earlier this year, Russian space officials were talking about pulling out of the International Space Station in 2025. But that didn’t stop them from sending up a new addition to their segment of the outpost. It’s called the Nauka module, and its design and development began more than 20 years ago.
The module fills a gap in the Russian portion of the station for a capsule intended for science experiments, and is seen as important for the entire Russian program. It will also provide an assortment of other improvements to Russia’s section of the station.
Here’s what you need to know about the Nauka module and its arrival to the space station on Thursday.
Here’s what you need to know:
When is the docking and how can I watch it?
The new Russian module is scheduled to arrive at the space station on Thursday around 9:25 a.m. Eastern time. According to NASA officials, the automated docking system has begun operating.
NASA TV is streaming live coverage at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time, or you can watch it in the video player above. Viewers who want to watch the operation in Russian can tune into the YouTube page of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.
What is the Nauka module?
Nauka was originally constructed as a backup for another Russian module, Zarya, and later repurposed. Nauka in Russian means science, fitting it main mission: housing laboratory equipment for experiments.
Beyond that, the module includes a radiation-insulated cabin with additional living room for astronauts, a toilet, new water recycling and air filtering systems, storage space, and a robotic arm provided by the European Space Agency.
With a weight of more than 20 tons and a length of more than 42 feet, Nauka is set to become one of the largest modules on the station. A series of spacewalks will be needed to hook it up to the station’s electrical and command circuits.
Why is Russia adding a new component to the space station?
Development of the module began in the mid-1990s, before the first components of the station went aloft and long before the current political tensions with the United States, which have raised the prospects of Russia quitting the space station by 2025.
Its launch was repeatedly delayed by manufacturing flaws and underfinancing, leaving a gap on the Russian side of the station. Russia is currently the only major operator without its own laboratory module.
Equipped with solar panels, Nauka will also make the Russian orbital segment less dependent on energy coming from the American side. Additional habitable space, including a bed for one astronaut, will make it possible for the permanent Russian crew to be expanded to three members.
What problems did the module have after it launched?
A Russia Proton rocket flawlessly lofted the new module into orbit, but problems appeared almost immediately.
A glitch with the spacecraft’s engines had scientists back on Earth nervous for days, according to the European Space Agency, whose robotic arm is attached to the module. “Adversity insisted on being part of the journey,” the agency said in a statement.
While Nauka will eventually attach to the station, it flew as an autonomous spacecraft for several days in orbit. The module deployed its solar panels and antennas but then failed to fire engines to raise its orbit, a potentially mission-ending problem. Russian engineers managed to correct it, the European Space Agency said, characterizing the episode as a few “hectic days at mission control.”
Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, never directly addressed the problems in its updates on the mission, noting only in a news release last Thursday that the module’s thrusters were, in fact, operating. “Telemetry confirmed the module propulsion unit operability,” Roscosmos said in the statement.
Is there risk to a new module being added to the space station?
Yes. After all, Russia is sending a 23-ton object on a collision course with the $100 billion space station. The key to success is that the collision is gentle and in the correct configuration.
What Russia wants to avoid is what happened in 1997, when a Progress cargo rocket crashed into its earlier space station, Mir, rupturing one of the modules and destroying a solar panel.
Since the 1997 accident, docking procedures have become much more sophisticated. At the time, the Progress was under the manual remote control of a Russian astronaut on Mir. The new Nauka module is to dock entirely autonomously.
And mission managers have had much practice in the 20-some years they have been managing the International Space Station. It was launched in pieces that had to be docked in orbit. Still, engineers are properly paranoid about avoiding even unlikely disasters.
When SpaceX was readying its first mission of its astronaut capsule to the space station — without crew aboard — Roscosmos raised a concern that if the Crew Dragon’s computer failed during approach, the capsule would crash into the space station. (SpaceX’s cargo capsules approached from a different direction so there was no possibility of a collision.)
NASA agreed to implement some precautions — closing hatches on the I.S.S. and readying the Russian Soyuz spacecraft that carries astronauts to and from the outpost for a rapid evacuation, if necessary. The Crew Dragon docking proceeded without a hitch, and before the second Crew Dragon mission, the one taking NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley to the space station last year, SpaceX made more changes that eliminated even the unlikely possibilities of something going wrong.
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