A 'robot arm' to fly to International Space Station

Context

The European Space Agency (ESA) is preparing to send a robotic arm outside the planet to the International Space Station (ISS).

• The European Robotic Arm (ERA) is headed towards the Russian segment of the space station, where it will remain in service.

About the Robotic Arm

• The robotic arm is installed into the new Russian multipurpose laboratory module, also known as 'Nauka'.
• The module will be launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on a Proton rocket by Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.
• It is much like a human arm. It has an elbow, shoulders, and even wrists.
• The European Robotic Arm (ERA) is the first robot able to ‘walk’ around the Russian segment of the International Space Station.
• The orbital arm has the ability to anchor itself to the station and move back and forward by itself, hand-over-hand between fixed base-points.
• This space robot looks like a pair of compasses and has a length of over 11m. When stretched, it could pass a football from a penalty spot to the goalkeeper.
• The robotic arm in space will be able to handle multi-tonne payloads with a large range of motion for assembly tasks.
• 'Smart spacewalker' will serve as the "main manipulator" on the Russian segment of the International Space Station.