Humanoid robot fails to dock in ISS

Moscow: A Soyuz spacecraft carrying Russia’s first humanoid robot on Saturday failed to dock automatically with the international space station, Moscow news agencies reported. The craft launched a repeat of the docking manoeuvres after the failure of the first attempt, which had been scheduled for 0530 GMT, the agencies said. Live broadcast of the event on the Russian space agency Roskomos was interrupted with the Soyuz spacecraft about 100 metres (109 yards) off the ISS. The lifesize robot, named Fedor, was to spend 10 days learning to assist astronauts in the space station. Short for Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research, Fedor blasted off Thursday in a Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft from Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and was to stay on the ISS until September 7.