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one of the big activities for the last

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two weeks has been the upgrades to the

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iss k.u and communications systems and

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there's been a team behind the scenes

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who's been working this for years we

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have one of the

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leads of that team joining us here this

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is penny roberts from the international

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space station software and avionics

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group thanks so much for joining us

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you're welcome so this has been a big

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endeavor it's been the focus of the

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activities largely for the ground

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control team and as well for the

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on-orbit crew but it started upwards of

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seven years ago can you kind of tell us

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what was the genesis for all of this and

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how did it begin

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well we had to

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consider when the space shuttle retired

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how we would spare the vehicle

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and so we went to build a bunch of spare

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boxes to make sure we had adequate

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resources to keep the space station

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going for the life of the program

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and we reconsidered doing that for this

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particular

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system instead we looked at upgrading it

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to provide enhanced capabilities to

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ensure we had the full utility of all

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the payloads and experiments and

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international partners onboard the space

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station to to make sure we could get the

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data to the ground and so we looked at

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upgrading this system instead of just

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building the same box to print

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and so for for an endeavor like that how

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did you guys even start facing the

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challenge bringing the teams together

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and figuring out what was needed

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well the first thing you got to do is

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contact the users find out what they

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need look at the program in the future

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and what's coming and what data needs to

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get to the ground and

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where the data is going to be located at

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and then you have to figure out how do

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you deploy it in such a way that you

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meet the needs as the program evolves

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and that you don't take down the system

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for too long while you're trying to

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upgrade it because it's it's a challenge

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to upgrade a moving platform

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and so we pulled together the right

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people we we talked through the issues

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and the needs and we we came up with a

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phased

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design and development approach that

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would get us

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to the end of the program and it sounds

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like you were saying that this started

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just as you know a plan to enhance it

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but really the timing worked out perfect

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because it seems like it's really been

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needed to have that additional bandwidth

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at least for the science and experiment

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data

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yeah we're positive that the bandwidth

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will be filled and is already filled by

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the the payloads that are needing to get

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data to the ground

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so

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these uh initial conversations concept

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started about seven years ago but you

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said it started in earnest about four

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years ago walk us through

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what what happens over four years to for

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something like this

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well we started by first

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looking at the robustness of the system

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and

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to improve the robustness we we first

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actually deployed an antenna a new

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antenna

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to

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a robustness outside where we had single

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point failures we actually put a new

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boom outside we put a new antenna on it

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and a new um

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transmitter receiver controller and so

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that happened several years ago and then

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we looked at the the payload data path

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and we upgraded one of our boxes that

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are on orbit tube to aggregate data into

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a single channel and get us multiple

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channels to the ground and then now

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we're doing the big one which is the

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integrated communications unit and this

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one actually expands the the bandwidth

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of data getting to the ground as well as

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data coming up to the space station

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and the ability to

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send video down using modern techniques

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and so there was several enhancements

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that were part of this and we just pull

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a community of people together from

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across the country to make that happen

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as well as work with the space network

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folks to get the tdrs and utilize

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capabilities that we've never used in

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our communication satellite

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um so yeah speaking of the team how many

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people are we talking about

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well we're trying to procure about 500

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patches right now for the team and i'm

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not sure that's going to be enough

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because we had members in california

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members in denver

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members in white sands marshall space

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flight center has been a major player in

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this activity as well as the folks here

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even maryland florida so we've got a lot

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of a lot of people contributed to this

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project to make it a success so you all

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must be really really happy everything

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seems to have been going really smoothly

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last week and this week the installation

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of the the new calm one unit

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yeah everybody's been very happy

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we you know you're cautiously optimistic

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and hope nothing will go wrong and you

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encounter problems but you find a team

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who can can solve those problems so

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quickly and and we we've been very much

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happy we've been pulling in the entire

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team because some of the team has left

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many years ago and so we've been letting

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them know what's going on and they've

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been sharing in the deployment and

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enjoying

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the success that we've had the past two

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weeks

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so i think there's still some more steps

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next week can you kind of walk us

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through where we are at now and what is

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yet remaining for this

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well we've done most of the work the

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crew has plugged in both of the boxes

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that were added to the avionics rack iii

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all the cabling has been laid out for

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the past year over the past year we've

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been putting the cables on board and so

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what's left to go is to activate the

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final box and and that just means to

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check out the performance of that box

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make sure it's all of its functions are

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performing as we expected and then we

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plan to stay on using that box versus

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the the one we were using right this

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moment and so that's next week on

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thursday and then it's just you know

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enjoying the capability that we've

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provided to not only the u.s lab but the

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entire

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partnership that we have on the space

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station so it enhances everybody's

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capabilities to get data to the ground

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absolutely um so

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once it is complete then i'm imagining

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there's some sort of you know some

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remaining tasks and phase down but

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after that what what's up for you after

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this

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well we made the box so we can upgrade

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it

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and we can upgrade a lot easier than

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what we've done this time we've we've

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used state-of-the-art technology taking

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ourselves from a tape deck recorder to

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solid state recording capability and one

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of the bigger things we did was we're

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using what's called filled programmable

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gate arrays and that allows us the

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capability to take encoding techniques

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that we're using today and change them

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tomorrow so when the technology advances

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we can advance with it and so one of the

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first things we'd like to do quite

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frankly is upgrade it again through

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reprogramming it to get twice as much

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data to the ground and we're looking at

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whether we can increase the bandwidth up

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as well

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and then it's a card replaceable box so

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we may be able to pull out a memory card

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and put in a new memory card and have

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increased capacity and so it's it's a

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platform that allows us to grow for the

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future which is useful for for deep

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space missions where you can't fly a new

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box up there you have to be able to

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reprogram it to fix it or reprogram it

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to get more capabilities and that's what

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we have in this box right so it sounds

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like it's in itself it's a learning

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platform for longer missions and deeper

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space missions yes definitely but no

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rest for the weary already working on

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new and better enhancements

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well

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they pay us to work here and that's what

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we do

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and and it's great to be able to

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to do something that benefits

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the agency in our country and and the

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world as a whole

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well while we have you tell us a little

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bit about yourself your background and

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how you ended up working at nasa

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well let's see i i'm a physics major i

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went to a small university in florida

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and

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i was given an opportunity to hire

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directly into nasa almost 30 years ago

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now

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and i remember the phone call it came

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while i was about to deliver a pizza to

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a table

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at a pizza place and um and it was an

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easy decision when he said do you want

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to come work here and i had that pizza

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and i said yes

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and so i was here within about a month

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and i had a job here and i've been

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working here and never had a dull moment

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well great it's fascinating uh

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fascinating stuff what you guys have

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done congratulations on a great uh

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project and you know hopefully things

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will continue smoothly you're gonna wrap

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it up next week and it sounds like more

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to come so thanks so much for joining us

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and sharing with us a little bit about

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the background about this big task again

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it's a big accomplishment for the whole