This is Oleg Artemyev. In his hand is a tiny satellite, known as a nanosatellite, called Chasqui 1 — and he’s about to throw it into the wilds of space.
Well, throw might not be quite the right word — Artemyev would favour “deploy” — but it’s not far off. Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev conducted a five-hour spacewalk on Monday, and part of that involved letting the satellite drift slowly into orbit, as well removing and installing some new scientific equipment. You can see pictures of
Artemyev releasing the satellite below — and choose your own word for the process. [Oleg Artemyev via NASA via Gizmodo ES]
