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hi welcome to the international space

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station flight controller flight control

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room we have here today uh anthony

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barria who is a spartan flight

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controller and he's going to give us an

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update on the uh ammonia link that we

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had the space walk over the weekend to

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repair thanks so much for joining us

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anthony good morning glad to be here

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okay why don't we start with uh real

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quick explaining what a spartan is

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because okay that background spartan's

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in charge of the electrical and the

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thermal systems onboard station so uh

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all the ammonia power all the ammonia

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cooling systems on the external uh on

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the external part of the station that

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takes away the heat from the modules and

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the in this case the eva was done on the

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uh the cooling system that cools the

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batteries you know just like a cellu

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cellular phone

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batteries get hot when they are

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discharging and so we have to have an

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ammonia cooling system to radiate that

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heat away via radiator so we've got a

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pump runs it through the the batteries

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underneath the batteries and then uh

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releases that heat into space by our

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radiator so that's uh that's where we

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had the uh the the leak this past week

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and we have a graphic here of uh what

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that area looks like exactly so that's

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out on the p6 truss we're talking the

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far port side of the of the space

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station now p6 truss was actually even

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though it's way out on the end uh that

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piece of truss has been on orbit since

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gosh 2000 or something something in that

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time frame right

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and uh that was back when the station

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was much smaller so as we built out the

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truss we've been able to finally put in

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its final spot which you see here on the

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far port side of the vehicle so uh

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you know these cooling systems that

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spartan is in charge of along with the

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electrical systems are what

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keep the lights on and keep everything

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running on station very important

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absolutely and we want to make sure that

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they're running okay so that's what

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normally the spartan officer is in

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charge of making sure that the all the

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lights and pumps and fans and everything

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are working right so we can get you know

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good science down on the station and

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keep the keep the crew members safe and

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so last week we noticed that there was a

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a leak in the ammonia system that cools

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that uh area on the p6 truss right

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that's correct so we sent

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chris cassidy and tom marshburn out to

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do a spacewalk and take a look at it and

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get it prepared and and changed out is

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that right that's correct and that was

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done in record time you know we've we've

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actually known that we've had a leak on

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the system for several years a very

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small leak starting back in 2006 about a

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pound and a half per year so out of a

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you know a system that's several dozen

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pounds you know 100 maybe 100 pounds

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that's not that big of a deal so the

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first thing we did was we decided we'll

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just feed the leak and so that was done

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on ulf6 back in 2011

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mike fink and uh and drew feustel went

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out to the p6 worksite and refilled that

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with ammonia from one of the other

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ammonia systems

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so we thought we were doing pretty good

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then and then the leak rate picked up

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last year middle of last year and that's

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when sunny and aki went out in eba 20 in

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early november of 2012 and that was to

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try and isolate the radiator because the

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leak had gotten a lot worse

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well we had a 50 50 chance on whether or

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not the leak was in the radiator or in

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the pump those are the two parts that

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you can replace

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and as we learned after eva 20 which

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sunny naki did in november wasn't in the

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radiator so

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we kept an eye on it we were watching

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the leak and sure enough on thursday

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morning

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the crew called down seeing ammonia

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flakes let me show what that looks like

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here good video of it here yeah that's

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usually that should be liquid

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pressurized ammonia but when it's in the

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vacuum of space it will uh turn into

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these small flakes here which you can

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see

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and so our leak rate which in mid 2012

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was a five pound per year leak rate

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turned into maybe a five pound per day

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leak rate we couldn't operate yeah we

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couldn't operate for very long with that

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so that's what led to the quickest

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turnaround stage eva that i think we've

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ever done here well and despite the

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quick turnaround it was very successful

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right they got in and out and uh the

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right amount of time on saturday and and

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it looks like they've got it fixed well

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well yeah right amount of time well they

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they raced through i think when i was

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putting in my console log that the crew

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was exiting the airlock as i was typing

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the sentence the crew reported from the

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far end of p6 so certainly got the the

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right crew members up there to to scurry

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around and do this pretty fast and as

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you said yeah we're feeling pretty good

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about where we are um the big leak you

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know the gusher that we were that the

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crew called down seeing the flakes from

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we think we've got that isolated to the

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pump that we have taken out of the

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system we call we've referred to that uh

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the nomenclature of that pump is now mr

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leaky uh and mr leaky is we still have

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uh telemetry insight on that pump and we

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can watch it right now you know the

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spartan officer matt gilson sitting over

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there right now is what just showed me

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the plot

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the accumulator in that pump is going

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down and that pump we know that that is

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got a big leak in it so that's a good

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sign whether or not the small leak we

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were seeing or small air leak we were

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seeing last year is also in that pump

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well we'll have to check that over time

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but right now we're feeling pretty good

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we definitely got the big leak and we're

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definitely able to run the system right

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now which is uh if you would have asked

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me last thursday if we were being this

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position right now i'd have said

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absolutely not so we're doing we're

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doing very well right now great so um

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how long will it take for you to know

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whether or not the small leak is gone if

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you fix that with with this change out

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as well so we have you know we have

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teams of engineers as well as those of

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us spartans who watch the data very

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closely and it'll probably take a couple

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of months at least to be able to say you

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know what we think the uh what we think

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this system is doing and it'll take

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longer if it's leaking less or leaking

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not at all so as we've told our

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management we want to uh if they don't

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hear from us it's a good thing probably

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so we'll keep an eye on the data and

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we'll look at it over the next couple of

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months and make sure the system's

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running healthy but we've got actually

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we you know when we first saw the leak

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the first thing we did was we stopped

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the pump and when we did that we slowed

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down the leak rate so we've managed to

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hold on to enough ammonia that we can

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run the system and we still have a

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little bit of margin to with which that

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you know as

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fluids cool down they contract so they

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have a little bit less

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fluid in the system we can survive those

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sort of orbital variations and and be

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okay so we're looking pretty good right

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now okay well um i know after i guess

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after they discovered the leak and knew

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we were

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planning to lose that loop of the

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electrical system they moved everything

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over to the other loop so that we

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wouldn't turn off you know anything

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unnecessarily has that all been re-moved

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back to that's a good question so the

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electrical power system of the station

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is designed very well uh we have a lot

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of redundancy and the ability to cross

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strap different power channels so that

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maybe one solar array feeds what another

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solar array should have that's all done

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at the mbsu main bus switching unit

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which you may remember from evas 18 and

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19 that sunny aki

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replaced one of those last year so this

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is the we're talking about the two bravo

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channel that's actually our winds up

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being our most important channel so when

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we saw that leaking we

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handed over its loads to the two alpha

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channels so two alpha is now supporting

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all the twos the two and the two b

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and since then we haven't been actually

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pulling any power from the two bravo

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channel the one with which had the leak

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on it we're just waiting on some

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software updates to account for the new

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pump and then early next week we should

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be able to produce a happy healthy two

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bravo channel supporting its own loads

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okay and after that would you say that

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everything would be kind of back to

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normal

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as far as the as far as crew and

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everybody else would be concerned to be

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back to normal as far as the spartan

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console uh is concerned there's we

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haven't been in a normal for quite a

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long time but uh but it'll be manageable

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we'll call it manageable all right well

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thanks so much for talking with us i