Of Vostochny, orbital labs and flip-flopping

[DDE]

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/oka_t.html

I had no idea that there's YET ANOTHER part of Roscosmos that is riddled with political maneuvering.

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

A space capsule as a free flying lab. Kind of like dragon lab I don't get why it needs to be near the ISS.

[K^2]

1 hour ago, Emperor of the Titan Squid said:

A space capsule as a free flying lab. Kind of like dragon lab I don't get why it needs to be near the ISS.

So that it can dock for servicing.

[YNM]

Hmm... I don't quite see the obvious reasons for this - can anyone give me example(s) of such experiments, and the proof they can't be done on ISS itself ?

[Kryten]

Some crystallisation experiments, for example, wouldn't be viable on ISS because the microgravity isn't good enough; all the people moving around and the pumps for the life support system degrade it quite badly. Still, Energiya couldn't find enough examples of experiments sensitive enough to do Oka without government funds, and SpaceX haven't found enough to do DragonLab. With New Shepard on the cusp of operation and able to provide clean microgravity for very cheap, we can expect there to be even less experiments requiring this kind of capability.

Edited August 14, 2016 by Kryten

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Kryten said:

Some crystallisation experiments, for example, wouldn't be viable on ISS because the microgravity isn't good enough; all the people moving around and the pumps for the life support system degrade it quite badly. Still, Energiya couldn't find enough examples of experiments sensitive enough to do Oka without government funds, and SpaceX haven't found enough to do DragonLab. With New Shepard on the cusp of operation and able to provide clean microgravity for very cheap, we can expect there to be even less experiments requiring this kind of capability.

You could also have experiments too dangerous to do on ISS, lots of chemestry fits here, also even it docked it would let you use gear for that experiment without installing. 
Still as you say, its limited with experiments, Not much interest in dragon lab and it should be possible to use an Soyuz for this. Yes you only return one part but that should not be an serious issue. You could dock with ISS to unplug stuff, and move the sample to the return pod and close the hatch. 

 

[Nibb31]

The ISS is a rather dirty and noisy  environment.

There is a lot of machinery on board, and human presence, which induce vibrations that interfere with microgravity experiments. The ISS is also followed by a cloud of debris, including paint and insulation flakes and molecules of gas from thruster exhaust, which means that the quality of the vacuum is quite poor.

[DDE]

22 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

The ISS is also followed by a cloud of debris, including paint and insulation flakes and molecules of gas from thruster exhaust, which means that the quality of the vacuum is quite poor.

This should be emphasized. The lab is supposed to have a shielded vacuum exposure section.

[Kryten]

Was. Oka-T was cancelled as part of the 2015 shake-up of the long-term federal space plan. In theory Energiya could do it with internal funds, but in practice they haven't got any.

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

Wasn't there originally supposed to be a european freeflying platform on the ISS?

[Nibb31]

23 hours ago, Emperor of the Titan Squid said:

Wasn't there originally supposed to be a european freeflying platform on the ISS?

That was one of the early plans for Columbus.

Columbus was originally intended as an autonomous space station that would be serviced by the Hermes shuttle. When Hermes was dropped, it turned into a free-flyer module for the ISS, and finally became a simple European lab module.