The Russian Soyuz capsule with the humanoid robot Fedor on board has succeeded in attaching itself to the international space station ISS. That was announced on Nasa TV on Tuesday.

"The contact has been confirmed, the link has been confirmed," a commentator announced on the Nasa television channel.

The intention was that the link would already take place on Saturday, but that failed then. The capsule was as close as 96 meters from the mooring place, but then began to drift away.

The capsule of the Soyuz-MS-14 is unmanned, but it does contain the human-like robot Fiodor, which is 1.80 meters tall and weighs nearly 160 kilograms. Fedor - Skybot F-850 for the friends - stands for "Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research" in English.

Fedor also has his own account on Instagram and Twitter, on which he gives an insight into the daily worries of a humanoid robot.

The robot has to perform different tasks for two weeks under the supervision of the Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Skvortsov. He will test the skills of Fedor under micro gravity. One of the important skills of the robot is that it can imitate human movements, so that it can help astronauts or take over tasks from them. His return is planned for 7 September.

Russia has been using Soyuz FG launchers since 2002 to bring people to the ISS. But in 2020, the switch will be made to the launcher Soyuz 2.1a, which has already launched a Russian Progress cargo ship. One launch with a Progress failed, hence the test with a non-manned Soyuz capsule.

--- D'Bridge 3.99
* Origin: AVIATION ECHO HQ (2:292/854)