Satellite robots making photos of the ISS outer surface could be of great help for the cosmonauts at the first stages than android robot developed by one of the space industry enterprises, – cosmonaut Oleg Kotov said, who returned from the spaceflight this Tuesday.

Android robots may be considered just like a tribute to fashion or science fiction since from the functional point of view it is not always necessary to have two-hand and two legged assistant. Say, four- or six-hand robot will be much more useful. Nevertheless android being similar to the human looks more familiar. Besides, android simulates human hand motion functions that’s why both a cosmonaut and a robot may use the same tools,” – Kotov stated.

“To my mind it would be better to send to the ISS robots observing the station’s outer surface before sending androids. It could have been mini-satellites flying around the station and taking photos, cause it would be very helpful to observe problem causing points to be repaired from the outside without specially organized spacewalk”, – Kotov added.

The pilot model of SAR-401 android robot developed by Android Technologies Scientific Development and Production Centre was presented in GCTC in November 2013. In the future the company intends to design flight model able to perform about 50 operations in the open space.

Image credit – Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center