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hi I'm Ben Toma the mechanical lead here

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for the assembly test and launch

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operations of curiosity the next Mars

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rover so just recently we installed the

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robotic arm that was a major milestone

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for the project not only for the

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engineers that worked on this arm for

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years designing assembling it and

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finally delivering it but for the

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project as a whole

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having the arm on the rover is a huge

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accomplishment now we'll be able to

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begin the testing of that arm while it's

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on curiosity it's a very complicated

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very tricky maneuver to actually put the

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arm on the rover we use a crane from

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above because this arm is so heavy

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we need to delicately bring it over and

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actually secure it to the front of the

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rover we're gonna go through a series of

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electrical and functional tests where

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the arm will actually be exercised it'll

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move around we'll start to learn how to

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use the arm with curiosity the arm is

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really one of the fundamental parts of

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our ability to gather the science at the

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end of the arm there's several different

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instruments there's a camera there's a

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spectrometer and there's a drill that

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will deliver samples up to the other

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instruments on the rover so without the

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arm we wouldn't be able to do a good

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portion of the science that we're

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actually going to Mars for there's still

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a lot of activities that we have ahead

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of us a lot of testing while we're

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working on the rover down here in this

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facility we have the cruise stage which

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is the device that actually takes the

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entire spacecraft to Mars that's

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currently going through a thermal vacuum

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test up in our 25-foot space simulator

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this is a big morale boost over the last

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couple of months we've finally seen some

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of the major pieces of hardware get put

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on this Rover going back for the last

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couple of years we focused a lot of our

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attention on the inside of the rover all

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the electronics the telecommunications

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the thermal control system just in the

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last couple of months as you've seen

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we've installed the mobility system the

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remote sensing mask which sits up on top

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of the rover with its cameras and now

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filing the arm the rover finally

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starting to look like it doesn't all

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these beautiful animations we've seen so

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the team is very excited that these

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major accomplishments in our ability to

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move forward with testing I'm Ben Toma

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and this has been your building