On October 05, 2012 five micro satellites were launched from the board of the International Space Station. The satellites, small enough to be held in the palm of the hand, were transported to the space station by the Japanese "Kounotori 3” unmanned supply spacecraft in July 2012. Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and other astronauts conducted the first-ever operation to launch the satellites using a robotic arm. They finished the task at 15:44 UTC. 3 (WE-WISH; RAIKO and FITSAT-1) of the 5 satellites were developed by Japanese companies and universities. The Fukuoka Institute of Technology made a satellite which uses light-emitting diodes to send messages in Morse code to earth. The 2 other satellites (TechEdSat and NanoRacks) are belonged to NASA. The satellites will orbit earth for about 100 days and eventually disintegrate when entering the atmosphere.
