On Thursday (August 22), the Russian space agency Roscosmos is launching a mission to the ISS, aiming to test a new rocket type (Soyuz 2.1a) meant for crewed flights. This time, the rocket will fly with no humans on board, but one creature will be there to report back on how the rocket performs.The creature is called Skybot F-850 and is part of the line of Fedor robots Russia is working on for years now. That supposedly is an acronym for Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research.The robot has been under testing for years, and there’s proof of that in the videos at the bottom of the page. In time, it learned to handle tools (including a blowtorch), drive cars, and even fire weapons.For the trip to the ISS though, few of these skills will be used. The robot’s movements have been limited with special algorithms to prevent potential damage to the station’s hardware, says Space On this particular trip to orbit, the robot will be seated in the rocket’s commander chair, and not in its cargo hold -that’s a first for space exploration programs.The Soyuz 2.1a rocket is scheduled to depart the pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 03:38 GMT on August 22. The launch broadcasts live on NASA’s YouTube channel As for the Robonaut we mentioned earlier, the fate of GM’s creation is not known at this point. The robot was sent back to Earth in May 2018 on a SpaceX Dragon capsule to be repaired. The machine spent nearly its last five years in orbit doing nothing but occupy space due to a malfunction.