MOSCOW, March 19. /TASS/. The Nauka (Science) multifunctional module set to be launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2020 will be furnished with platforms to accommodate satellite equipment, a source in the space industry told TASS on Tuesday.

According to the source, this proposal was put forward by Head of the State Space Corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin at a meeting held at the Energia Space Rocket Corporation.

"Rogozin proposed installing universal platforms at the external side of the casing of the Nauka multifunctional module. In the future, they are expected to accommodate satellite payloads to make it possible to carry out the Earth’s monitoring and remote sensing and perform other functions from aboard the ISS," the source said.

According to the source, cosmonauts will be installing the corresponding equipment on board the module turned towards the Earth during their spacewalks. The crewmembers of the space station will also deal with the equipment’s maintenance and replacement. The placement of the satellite payload will help "load" the ISS with other useful projects, in addition to the experiments that are ongoing at present.

A source in the space industry earlier told TASS that the fuel tanks in the Nauka module where metal chips had been found will be replaced by new ones that 90% coincide "by their design and dimensions with the organic tanks" of the Fregat booster.

This decision has been made because "the old tanks cannot be cleaned and there is no sense in that because they were made 18 years ago with violations and have micro-cracks." The Nauka multifunctional module is expected to be launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the summer of 2020 aboard a Proton-M carrier rocket, according to preliminary data.