Russian cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Sergey Ryazansky launched several nanosatellites during a spacewalk on Thursday, Mission Control near Moscow told TASS.

"The launch of nanosatellites TS530-Zerkalo and Tomsk-TPU-120, two nanosatellites Tanyusha YyZGU and TNS-0 N.2," Mission Control said.

Yurchikhin and Ryazansky began the space walk at 17:45. They are to stay outside the space station for six hours and five minutes, during which time they are to dismantle and install research equipment and test a new generation space suit, Orlan-MKS.