CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. \u2014 Spacewalking cosmonauts set free the world\u2019s first satellite made almost entirely with a 3-D printer on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In total, Russians Fyodor Yurchikhin and Sergey Ryazanskiy ended up releasing five nanosatellites by hand. One by one, the tiny craft \u2014 no more than 1 to 2 feet in size \u2014 tumbled safely away from the International Space Station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The exterior casing of the first one tossed overboard was made with a 3-D printer. So were the battery packs inside. Researchers want to see how parts made with a 3-D printer weather the space environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 3-D satellite contains regular electronics. It also holds greetings to planet Earth in a variety of languages, courtesy of students at Siberia\u2019s Tomsk Polytechnic University, where the satellite was made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The other satellites deployed Thursday have traditional spacecraft parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each weighs just 10 to 24 pounds. They\u2019re expected to orbit for five to six months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One commemorates the 60th anniversary of the world\u2019s first satellite, Sputnik 1, launched Oct. 4, 1957, by the Soviet Union. Another pays tribute to Russia\u2019s father of rocketry, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who was born 160 years ago next month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The remaining two small satellites involve navigation and other experiments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yurchikhin and Ryazanskiy completed the satellite releases within an hour of venturing outside. Barely a minute passed between a few of the launches. The rest of their work took longer than expected, however, and Russia\u2019s Mission Control outside Moscow sent the planned six-hour spacewalk into overtime. It ended up lasting seven and a half hours, and the cosmonauts said their hands were tired. All but one task got done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe will have actually some grounds to get drunk today, I think,\u201d one of the cosmonauts joked in Russian. A flight controller replied that he\u2019d do it for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cosmonauts collected science experiments from outside their 250-mile-high home and wiped thruster residue from various surfaces for analysis. Three Americans and one Italian also live on the space station.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Researchers want to see how parts made with a 3-D printer weather the space environment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":83117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":39,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[8,39],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1749],"class_list":["post-29484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c2-comms","category-satellites"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"HDVEA4LLQJH5NFQXPGA25DSGUI","arc_canonical_url":"\/c2-comms\/satellites\/2017\/08\/17\/spacewalking-cosmonauts-release-3-d-printed-satellite\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n