ATHENS – Russian cosmonaut of Pontic-Greek descent Fyodor (Theodoros) Nikolayevich Yurchikhin Grammatikopoulos after a seven-and-a-half-hour walk outside the International Space Station (ISS), manually launched the world’s first Russian nanosatellite, made entirely with a 3-D printer.
The aim is to study the effects of space on composite polymers and ceramic materials produced by a 3-D printer. The tiny CubeSat satellite has dimensions of 30x11x11cm and weighs 3.7kg, or about 8.16 lbs.
In addition to its electronic sensors, it will transmit 437.025 MHz radio waves to Earth in ten languages, which were recorded by students of the Tomsk Technical University in Siberia, where the Tomsk-TPU-120 satellite was built in cooperation with the Russian aerospace company S.P. Korolev Rocket & Space Corporation Energia.
Yurchikhin, commander of the ISS mission 52, accompanied by Russian cosmonaut, engineer Sergey Ryazansky, carried out the mission.
Two mini-satellites named Tanyusha were launched one on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the launch of the first artificial satellite in history, Sputnik 1 of the USSR, and the other for the 160th anniversary of the birth of Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, father of the theoretical astronautics and missile program of Russia.
Finally, two more satellites, TNS-0 and TS530-Zerkalo, in the shape of a metal sphere much like the original Sputnik, were released in space to test the first experimental navigation system and the second to test the density of the Earth’s atmosphere.
The two cosmonauts of the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) also collected samples from various locations outside the Space Station as part of the studies on the microbial communities living outside it. They also placed handles and poles that will help astronauts in their future space walks.
Finally, they made the first test of a new and more sophisticated space suit for Russian cosmonauts. The outfit is equipped with an automatic temperature and computer control system and provides better protection against damage.
The cosmonaut’s spacewalk began at 17:36 GMT on Thursday and ended at 01:10 on Friday, lasting seven hours and 34 minutes (instead of the six hours initially scheduled). Until today – after the most recent spacewalk – Yurchikhin had “walked” in space for 59 hours and 28 minutes, holding the fourth place on the list of all the astronauts in the world.
The experienced Yurchikhin, who has been honored with the highest distinction as Hero of the Russian Federation and the Order of the Phoenix of the Hellenic Republic, was born in 1959 in Batumi, Georgia, and frequently visits Greece. He is currently making his fifth space travel and the fourth in the ISS, where he is in April. He is the eighth Russian cosmonaut who has reached the five space travels and the second oldest cosmonaut in space.
Yurchikhin’s Pontic Greek parents now reside in Sindos, Greece. He is married to Larisa Anatolievna Yurchikhina (born in Shchyolkovo) and they have two daughters.
Material from the ANA-MPA was used in this report.
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