Launch vehicles will be Falcon 9 rockets from SpaceX lifting off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and Kosmotras DNEPR rockets lifting off from Yasny, Russia.

FORBES: Iridium Preps Its NEXT Generation Of Satellites

Eventually the company is hoping to use its research to create orbiting systems that can fling other satellites into deep space, but seeing how the last Dnepr rocket crashed and burned on liftoff in 2006, Team Tether is probably best off taking this endeavor one step at a time.

ENGADGET: Inspector Gadget tackles 'The Case of the Experimental Space Tether'

The mission -- called MAST (for Multi-Application Survivable Tether) -- is scheduled to begin April 17th with a payload launch on a Dnepr rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, after which the Washington state-based Tethers Unlimited's two anchor sats (less-cleverly dubbed Ted and Ralph -- um, hello, Penny and Brain...) will gradually separate until they've pulled the kilometer-long line taut.

ENGADGET: Inspector Gadget tackles 'The Case of the Experimental Space Tether'