On Feb. 3, 2006, astronauts at the International Space Station tossed an empty spacesuit into space all by itself … for science.
Known as SuitSat, this empty spacesuit was equipped with a radio transmitter that would constantly broadcast pre-recorded messages from scientists and students from around the world.
Expedition 12 commander Bill McArthur of NASA and flight engineer Valery Tokarev, a Roscosmos cosmonaut, threw the old, empty Russian-built Orlan spacesuit overboard as an experiment.
It also broadcasted telemetry data, so amateur radio operators and citizen scientists on Earth could participate in tracking this creepy satellite. SuitSat only made it around the Earth twice before its batteries died prematurely, and it burned up while reentering Earth's atmosphere a few months later.
On This Day in Space Archive!
Still not enough space? Don't forget to check out our Space Image of the Day, and on the weekends our Best Space Photos and Top Space News Stories of the week.
Follow us @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.