nhk world's daisuke azuma at the space center in southern japan has the details. >> reporter: the iss orbits the earth as an altitude benefit 400 kilometers. it carries an experiment. it is scheduled to dock there in about a week. they can fit in the palm of your hand. astronauts with use of robot arm and module for the experiment. unlike many experiments on the iss, they will not need to venture outside the space station. the satellite will be placed inside a special containers. the orbit arm will release the satellites. >> satellites are usually launched with rockets, but the massive vibrations caused by rocket launches requires sat rights to be very strong structurally. if japan can release satellites from the experiment module, the small satellites won't need to be so durable. premade parts can be used to prepr reduce production costs. >> reporter: officials hope a successful experiment will add another option for launching satellites. the crew of the iss will share a shipment of supplies. that's why russia and europe are also developing transfer vehicles. if they can carry small

nhk world's daisuke azuma at the tanagasha space center in southern japan has the details. >> reporter: the iss orbits the earth at an altitude of about 400 kilometers. it carries a japanese experiment module. it is scheduled to dock there in about a week. they can fit in the palm of your hand. astronauts with use of robot arm and the module for the experiment. unlike many experiments on the iss, they will not need to venture outside the space station. the satellite will be placed inside special containers. the orbit arm will carry the satellites outside the station and release them. >> translator: satellites are usually launched with rockets, but the massive vibrations caused by rocket launches requires sat rights to be very strong structurally. if japan can release satellites from the experiment module, small satellites won't need to be so durable. premade parts can be used to reduce production costs. >> reporter: officials hope a successful experiment will add another option for launching satellites. the crew of the iss will share a shipment of supplies. that's why russia and europe

. >> witnessing the launch, you're lucky to see the launch daisuke. there was in the interview one of the professors that made the satellite. where else are the small cubes being developed? >> in a small company designing cube sat as a location in japan. researchers are also developing them in universities in the united states. >> okay. >> officials at nasa plan to launch. scientists in asian countries wanted to develop cube sat and put them in space. when the cube sat on the way to the space station is vietnamese. it can send photos from space. >> astronauts will launch cube sats from space stations for the first time. why are they using this method? >> satellites carried in space by rocket they have to be tremendously small to survive blastoff. carried to the space station as cargo. they don't need to be so tough. so putting them in space is cheaper. officials at the japanese space agency see big possibilities. >> translator: transfer vehicles regularly deliver supplies to the space station. so we'll have more and more opportunities to launch satell