Illustrations from the book “Travel To Distant Worlds” written by Karl Gilzen. The illustrations are dated 1955 and are by Nikolay Kolchitsky (Ðиколай Кольчицкий) . The Space Tugs are manned and have what appears to be simple mechanical arms.
The covers to both the Soviet version and the English version of the book.
Another similar illustration by the same artist, again of a space station being assembled using space tugs with mechanical arms. Magazine is the Soviet youth-oriented magazines “Tekhnika Molodezhi” dated 1955.
See other early Space Teleoperators here.
See other early Lunar and Space Robots here.