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welcome to nasa's jet propulsion

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laboratory in southern california today

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we are in a spacecraft assembly facility

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clean room which is why everyone you'll

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see here is wearing protective gear and

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frocks like me

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so

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in this room spacecraft have been built

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for decades but today we've invited

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members of the media to the clean room

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to learn more about one of jpl's

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upcoming mission and that's the psyche

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spacecraft it's on a mission to study a

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giant asteroid which is believed to be

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rich in metal and could give us a unique

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opportunity to study how planets like

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our own earth may have formed now it's

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set to launch in august so soon psyche

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is going to leave jpl and head over to

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nasa's kennedy space center in florida

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and today we have a chance to talk to

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two experts so if you have any questions

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you'd like to ask use the ask nasa

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or leave your questions in the comments

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below and first up we have lindsey

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ellison patton's the principal

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investigator on cycling thank you for

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joining us today thank you so much i'm

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very excited to talk with you now what

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is the first thing people should know

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about psyche

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all right why do we go to space humans

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we can't help it we have to explore

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we've always explored our planet now

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we're exploring in space

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there aren't that many kinds of worlds

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and places in our solar system that

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we've never had a picture we've never

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explored psyche is one of them it's a

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new kind of world that's why it's so

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exciting to go there

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and as a principal investigator what is

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your role on the mission

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i i am officially the lead of the

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mission

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but i'm a scientist i don't know

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everything

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my job is to make sure the science of

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the return the science return of the

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mission is successful and to try to keep

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the team working in the right and best

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direction that i possibly can working

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with all the other leaders

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and now i want to know

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what are you most excited about

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personally when it comes to psyche

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you know i'm very very excited about the

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science i'm hoping this is something

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very unusual and exciting

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but beyond that

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i think the reason that i'm most

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motivated to do this is because i think

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it gives this

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story of hope in the future

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for humans there's so much that's scary

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in the world right now but space

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exploration is a story of hope and a

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story of what we can do when we all work

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together it's kind of a miracle we can

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do this and go to space think of the

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things we can solve here on earth and

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could you tell us a little more about

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the psyche mission in general like what

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the psyche asteroid of course we named

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our spacecraft psyche after the asteroid

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where we're going we think it's made

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largely of metal we think it could be

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part of the metal core of a little

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planet that got broken apart and

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stranded in the asteroid belt instead of

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joining up and becoming a part of

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mercury venus earth or mars so if it is

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a part of a core

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it's the only way humans are ever going

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to see a core because we can't go to

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ours the pressure is way too much the

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temperature is way too much so it's a

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way of looking inside of the earth by

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going to outer space

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and how does it feel to be inside this

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clean room right now seeing excitement

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behind you

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been working on this for 11 years which

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is a short time in space mission terms

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but it's a long time in anyone's life

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and the fact that we've gone from this

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tiny idea to this

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beautiful giant spacecraft it feels a

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bit like a miracle i'm really excited

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thank you so much for talking to us can

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you kind of give us a little timeline of

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what will happen after launch with

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psyche yes

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so we expect and hope to launch august

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1st or thereabouts

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so then once it separates from the

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rocket the giant solar arrays will

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unfold and psyche will start moving out

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toward the asteroid in the first year

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we're going to test the deep space

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optical communications demonstration

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which is communicating with the earth

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using lasers instead of radio waves and

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then eventually after three years we'll

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reach the asteroid and we'll start doing

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the science of the asteroid itself

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and one thing that i think is really

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cool is this isn't even all of psyche

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right there's going to be more that

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people will see when we have the

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spacecraft behind us but there'll be the

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solar arrays that will be attached to it

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that's right our solar arrays are not

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attached right now they're being tested

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elsewhere but they're huge when they're

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completely unfolded as they will be in

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space the spacecraft and the solar

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arrays are as big as a singles tennis

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court and these solar arrays create 20

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kilowatts of energy here at the radius

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of earth

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and exactly where is the psyche asteroid

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located

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the psyche asteroid orbits in the outer

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main belt of the asteroid belt meaning

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that it's way out past mars sometimes

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closer to jupiter it's very far from the

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earth that's its stable orbit out there

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in the asteroid belt

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well thank you so much lindy for

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answering all our questions we might

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come back to you if we get some more

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social media questions coming in

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and if you have a question you'd like to

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ask use the hashtag asknasa or leave

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your questions in the comments below

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next up we're going to go to talk to

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project manager henry stone he's

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somewhere around here yeah let's see

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where he is there he is let's go find

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him

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hi henry

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we are live right now we're hoping we

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could ask you a couple questions about

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the psychic mission so for you what does

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it mean to be a project manager on a

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mission like psyche a project manager on

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a mission like this well i i equate it

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to being like an orchestra conductor

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right

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building a spacecraft as incredible as

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this or any system that's this

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sophisticated requires an enormous

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number of people

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with a lot of different skills

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and you got to bring that all together

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and you got to make sure it's all

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coordinated right everybody's developing

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all of their pieces at the right time uh

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interacting together properly

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in order to build that so it's just

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keeping everybody on on the right tune

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to make sure that we stay on schedule we

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build the right thing and we're ready to

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go for launch

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ed can you kind of break down the

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instruments on psyche

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for us uh the the science instruments is

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kind of really three plus one all right

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um

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so in order to get the scientific

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measurements we need we have a suite you

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can see them up here behind you up on

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the far boom there we have a gamma ray

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neutron spectrometer that was built at

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the applied physics laboratory

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and that is going to be used to detect

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elemental metallic composition of the

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surface of mars looking you know for the

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iron nickel aluminum what it's made of

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on this other boom here you'll see these

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little domes those are two magnetometers

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and they will be used to detect whether

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or not psyche has a magnetic field and

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if so

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how strong that field is and what the

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characteristics and shape of that

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magnetic field are and that's really key

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towards helping us understand whether

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psyche was an early core uh of an early

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planetesimal when the solar system was

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formed so that's two of the three the

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third of the three key scientific

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instruments actually is a pair

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of uh telescopic imagers with filter

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wheels unfortunately in this

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configuration you can't see those

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they're pointing up right now at the

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ceiling in this room on that top side of

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the

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understand you know craters and and use

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that to discuss uh determine the

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relative age of the body but perhaps

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most importantly is that each is

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equipped with a filter wheel and the

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filters have been chosen so that if you

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take images at those different light uh

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wavelengths

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you can actually determine what the

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mineralogical composition of the surface

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is

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so that and and the gamma ray between

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the metals and the silicates we can

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understand how much of it is a rocky

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body how much of this is a metallic body

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the fourth one is gravity science this

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is a very odd shaped body right it's

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kind of like a potato

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all right

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and it probably will have a very unique

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and odd gravitational field we can't

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safely go into orbit around that till we

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understand what that gravitational field

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looks like and so our

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x-band telecom system that we use to

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communicate to get receive data from and

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command the spacecraft

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actually does that tracking of the

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spacecraft so we start to go into orbit

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at a very high orbit

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that gravitational field will affect the

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motion of the spacecraft and we can

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measure that

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and then determine and build the

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detailed model of the gravitational

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field once we have that then we can get

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to successively lower and lower orbits

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to allow our instruments to get better

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and better and more refined measurements

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uh to accomplish the science so that's

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the science instrument suite for psychic

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i like the breakdown and the description

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of the potato that's my favorite part

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now we have a question coming in on

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social media yes elias on facebook asks

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how long will it take to complete a

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spacecraft with planning and finishing

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up to completion so the whole process

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the whole process uh well

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the earliest concept for this mission

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was developed by the principal

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investigator over 10 years ago

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all right

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about five years ago or six years ago or

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so

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she had approached folks at jpl about

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her scientific hypotheses and some

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engineers here

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said hey

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that's a really cool hypothesis and we

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think we can develop a spacecraft that

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could fly the instruments you need out

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there

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and so she began working with us and we

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put in a proposal to nasa to fly this

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mission

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um and we were selected about five years

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ago

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so the the real you know there's that

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kind of very early part but once we got

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selected and it became serious this is

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going to be a mission why

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um

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five years of development you start with

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early design and analysis figuring out

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exactly what you need who's going to

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provide the various pieces etc

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uh and then you start building you start

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building up the individual components

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testing those and then you move into

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system integration and this is the tail

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end of system integration that you're

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looking at that's taking all the myriad

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of pieces that are necessary that were

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already tested

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at the component level and put them

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together to make the overall spacecraft

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and then test the overall spacecraft so

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that's referred to as atlo

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apple is assembly test and launch

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operations okay

302
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and and we're in the very final stages

303
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the spacecraft as you see it right here

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is essentially how it will be flying in

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space

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right

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you can see all this other equipment

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over here is being packed up and stacked

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and getting ready for shipment we're

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going to be shipping the spacecraft at

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the end of this month on april 29th it

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will be brought to march air force base

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it'll be in a special shipping container

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it will be put on a c17

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and flown directly into cape canaveral

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and then we will

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open it up do some more testing and get

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ready to start integrating it

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loading it on top of the rocket that'll

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launch it uh from cape canaveral and

321
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our plan is to launch in august of this

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year and get it on its way

323
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from there that's when the actual

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mission so to say starts as opposed to

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just the project in the building

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it's gonna take us three and a half

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years

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to fly out to psyche we're gonna spiral

329
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out we're gonna pass mars and get a

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gravity assist we're gonna use our

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electric propulsion engines to thrust

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all the way

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spiral out catch up with psyche in its

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orbit it's way on the outer edge of the

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main asteroid belt which is between mars

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and jupiter so it's way out there three

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00:12:14,310 --> 00:12:08,320
times the distance

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sun as the earth is so way out there

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we'll take three and a half years and

340
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then we will spend two years at psyche

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orbiting at successively lower and lower

342
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orbits to take the measurements i was

343
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just talking about to try and prove the

344
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hypothesis as to whether or not psyche

345
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was the core of a very early planet

346
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formed you know in the blink of an eye

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when the solar system was created and

348
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that will help us uh to confirm whether

349
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or not our models of the formation are

350
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in fact correct and if they're not the

351
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thing that's really cool is then this

352
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will be an exceptionally unique and odd

353
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uh discovery so no matter what happens

354
00:12:57,990 --> 00:12:55,279
this is going to be a mission of

355
00:13:00,470 --> 00:12:58,000
discovery of what we believe is a

356
00:13:02,629 --> 00:13:00,480
metallic world it was a great answer and

357
00:13:05,350 --> 00:13:02,639
a great question thank you elias we have

358
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another question coming in uh

359
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mir on facebook asks why not study the

360
00:13:12,710 --> 00:13:10,880
nearby asteroids in the asteroid cell

361
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why psyche

362
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um well this is in the asteroid belt

363
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it's on the outer reaches of it okay

364
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but

365
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the the little bit of data we have from

366
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measurements from telescopes where it's

367
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only four little teeny pixels in an

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image and from radar data

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leads us to the conclusion at the moment

370
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that it is largely metal almost all the

371
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other asteroids are rocky bodies

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okay this one stands out as very unique

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as having a very high

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concentration of metal to explain why

375
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it's so massive it's also

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very large you know many of the

377
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asteroids are very very small this is

378
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one of the larger ones it's it's

379
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basically the size of massachusetts

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right the entire state

381
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um and and that's what makes it makes it

382
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unique

383
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formation of the solar system

384
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uh we have two more questions coming in

385
00:14:09,910 --> 00:14:07,600
one of them is from kieran on facebook

386
00:14:12,230 --> 00:14:09,920
why haven't optical communications been

387
00:14:13,430 --> 00:14:12,240
used until now for this

388
00:14:15,509 --> 00:14:13,440
ah karen

389
00:14:17,350 --> 00:14:15,519
very good good question so obviously

390
00:14:19,750 --> 00:14:17,360
karen you know that we are flying the

391
00:14:20,629 --> 00:14:19,760
dsoc instrument the deep space optical

392
00:14:23,110 --> 00:14:20,639
comp

393
00:14:25,670 --> 00:14:23,120
that's actually not part of the science

394
00:14:28,150 --> 00:14:25,680
of this mission but we are hosting that

395
00:14:31,430 --> 00:14:28,160
instrument as a technology demonstration

396
00:14:33,030 --> 00:14:31,440
for nasa right so

397
00:14:35,910 --> 00:14:33,040
it happens that that instrument was also

398
00:14:37,910 --> 00:14:35,920
developed here at jpl and the goal is to

399
00:14:39,910 --> 00:14:37,920
try and come up with the means

400
00:14:42,310 --> 00:14:39,920
to communicate with spacecraft in the

401
00:14:44,629 --> 00:14:42,320
future with much higher bandwidth so

402
00:14:46,710 --> 00:14:44,639
that we can have live videos like this

403
00:14:49,110 --> 00:14:46,720
from mars that's exactly what we're

404
00:14:51,509 --> 00:14:49,120
trying to to show how to do that

405
00:14:53,829 --> 00:14:51,519
so that instrument will be communicating

406
00:14:55,829 --> 00:14:53,839
with laser light as opposed to radio

407
00:14:57,670 --> 00:14:55,839
frequency

408
00:14:59,189 --> 00:14:57,680
sending signals right back down to a

409
00:15:01,269 --> 00:14:59,199
telescope here

410
00:15:03,750 --> 00:15:01,279
in california the palomar telescope

411
00:15:06,389 --> 00:15:03,760
where they can detect the individual

412
00:15:07,990 --> 00:15:06,399
photons coming from the spacecraft and

413
00:15:11,269 --> 00:15:08,000
you'll be able to communicate at much

414
00:15:14,230 --> 00:15:11,279
higher rates why why not more

415
00:15:16,550 --> 00:15:14,240
sooner than this yeah well

416
00:15:18,870 --> 00:15:16,560
it is a really really difficult thing to

417
00:15:20,870 --> 00:15:18,880
do you were talking about really large

418
00:15:23,910 --> 00:15:20,880
distances to communicate

419
00:15:25,030 --> 00:15:23,920
and you have to have enough energy

420
00:15:28,310 --> 00:15:25,040
uh to

421
00:15:31,269 --> 00:15:28,320
uh send a light beam down and collect it

422
00:15:33,590 --> 00:15:31,279
when it hits earth right and that

423
00:15:35,590 --> 00:15:33,600
beam is gonna you know expand out and

424
00:15:36,550 --> 00:15:35,600
and get lower and lower power as it gets

425
00:15:39,269 --> 00:15:36,560
to you

426
00:15:40,470 --> 00:15:39,279
so the technology that's a technology

427
00:15:41,829 --> 00:15:40,480
demonstration

428
00:15:43,350 --> 00:15:41,839
of how to

429
00:15:45,749 --> 00:15:43,360
not just

430
00:15:47,269 --> 00:15:45,759
detect a burst of light coming and

431
00:15:48,790 --> 00:15:47,279
telling you what the spacecraft is

432
00:15:51,509 --> 00:15:48,800
trying to say do it down to the

433
00:15:53,269 --> 00:15:51,519
elemental each individual photon is what

434
00:15:54,550 --> 00:15:53,279
makes that instrument so incredibly

435
00:15:55,990 --> 00:15:54,560
sophisticated

436
00:15:57,910 --> 00:15:56,000
in terms of its pointing and

437
00:15:59,430 --> 00:15:57,920
communication ability so

438
00:16:00,870 --> 00:15:59,440
it's taken a long time to get there and

439
00:16:03,430 --> 00:16:00,880
we're looking forward to that being

440
00:16:04,949 --> 00:16:03,440
equally successful to help all our

441
00:16:07,430 --> 00:16:04,959
future missions particularly those to

442
00:16:09,350 --> 00:16:07,440
mars right we've got human exploration

443
00:16:10,629 --> 00:16:09,360
coming up eventually we'd like to have

444
00:16:13,110 --> 00:16:10,639
live video

445
00:16:15,350 --> 00:16:13,120
yes that would be wonderful to see and

446
00:16:16,150 --> 00:16:15,360
the final question we have

447
00:16:17,590 --> 00:16:16,160
is

448
00:16:20,870 --> 00:16:17,600
here and on

449
00:16:23,110 --> 00:16:20,880
oh it's actually terry on facebook i'll

450
00:16:25,110 --> 00:16:23,120
kind of chime in too terry wants to know

451
00:16:27,030 --> 00:16:25,120
what is the most anxiety-inducing part

452
00:16:30,389 --> 00:16:27,040
of the project but also for you what is

453
00:16:33,189 --> 00:16:30,399
the most exciting part

454
00:16:35,670 --> 00:16:33,199
what's the anxiety part

455
00:16:37,990 --> 00:16:35,680
i guess is just

456
00:16:40,150 --> 00:16:38,000
missions like this you can't just launch

457
00:16:42,949 --> 00:16:40,160
any time you want you can't launch when

458
00:16:44,470 --> 00:16:42,959
you're ready so to say you have to it's

459
00:16:46,790 --> 00:16:44,480
planetary you've got to go with a

460
00:16:49,189 --> 00:16:46,800
specific launch window you can't move

461
00:16:51,269 --> 00:16:49,199
that around it's a really hard date

462
00:16:55,670 --> 00:16:51,279
and these are incredibly complex and

463
00:16:57,269 --> 00:16:55,680
sophisticated you know robotic explorers

464
00:16:59,269 --> 00:16:57,279
the the stress of trying to make sure

465
00:17:01,269 --> 00:16:59,279
that you get it all done and tested and

466
00:17:03,990 --> 00:17:01,279
it's ready to go on that fixed date it's

467
00:17:05,270 --> 00:17:04,000
probably the most anxiety

468
00:17:07,750 --> 00:17:05,280
written one and the second part of the

469
00:17:09,990 --> 00:17:07,760
question i'm sorry was the uh most

470
00:17:13,029 --> 00:17:10,000
exciting part for you the most exciting

471
00:17:16,949 --> 00:17:14,470
well it's kind of twofold it's the

472
00:17:18,949 --> 00:17:16,959
science right and going to explore this

473
00:17:19,909 --> 00:17:18,959
body that we no one's ever been to

474
00:17:21,909 --> 00:17:19,919
before

475
00:17:25,270 --> 00:17:21,919
right

476
00:17:26,230 --> 00:17:25,280
the second part for me as an engineer

477
00:17:29,270 --> 00:17:26,240
really

478
00:17:31,510 --> 00:17:29,280
is having the opportunity to work with a

479
00:17:33,190 --> 00:17:31,520
fabulous team of people

480
00:17:34,789 --> 00:17:33,200
specialists in all different areas and

481
00:17:37,190 --> 00:17:34,799
to orchestrate that

482
00:17:39,750 --> 00:17:37,200
in order to build these incredibly

483
00:17:42,230 --> 00:17:39,760
complicated and sophisticated uh pieces

484
00:17:44,310 --> 00:17:42,240
of equipment that is an engineer just

485
00:17:46,549 --> 00:17:44,320
just floats my book

486
00:17:48,549 --> 00:17:46,559
well this is very exciting thank you so

487
00:17:50,390 --> 00:17:48,559
much for talking to us today and there's

488
00:17:51,990 --> 00:17:50,400
lots of members of the media coming in

489
00:17:54,789 --> 00:17:52,000
right now they have questions for you as

490
00:17:57,750 --> 00:17:54,799
well so i'll let you get to that

491
00:17:59,590 --> 00:17:57,760
thank you very much thank you now psyche

492
00:18:01,750 --> 00:17:59,600
is set to launch in august from cape

493
00:18:05,830 --> 00:18:01,760
canaveral florida now to learn more

494
00:18:08,789 --> 00:18:05,840
about the mission follow at nasa gpl and

495
00:18:11,830 --> 00:18:08,799
at nasa solar system and also follow the