The U.S. space agency, NASA, says it is preparing to launch an unusual satellite: an empty space suit.

NASA says Russian scientists thought of the idea to hurl an empty suit out of the International Space Station on February third - arming it only with batteries, temperature and power sensors, and a radio transmitter.

The suit, nicknamed SuitSat, will allow researchers to understand how conditions in space affect the suit for the two or three days its batteries last.

As the suit orbits the Earth, it will send out radio transmissions that can be heard on short-wave radio.

People can find out on the NASA Web site when to tune in to a certain frequency (145.990 MHz) to hear the space suit broadcast a pre-recorded greeting in several languages (English, French, Japanese, Russian, German and Spanish).