ISS crew to launch mini-satellite on August 3

Russian cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will launch a mini-satellite during a spacewalk on August 3, mission control said on Friday. The mini-satellite, Kedr, is part of the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) project, and is designed to transmit greeting messages in 15 languages and relay images of Earth and telemetry data to amateur radio operators as it orbits the Earth. Its name comes from Russian cosmonaut Yury Gagarin's call sign and it is being launched in honor of the 50th anniversary of Garagin's flight. Cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyaev and Sergei Volkov will launch Kedr manually during a six-hour spacewalk. The Kedr was delivered to the ISS by a Russian cargo spacecraft, Progress M-09M, on January 30.