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the expedition 36 crew is getting set to

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execute the second space-based test of a

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system to permit control of a rover on

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the ground by a crew member on board an

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orbiting spacecraft

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for today its flight engineer luca

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parmitano who will be at the station's

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controls commanding the activity of a

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rover called k-10

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located at the nasa ames research center

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in moffett field california the

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investigation is called surface

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telerobotics and earlier i spoke with

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the payload developer maria boilat at

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ames about today's operation and the

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results they got from the first

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experiment run last month

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maria remind us what surface tele

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robotics is all about what what's your

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goal here

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surface cell robotics is an engineering

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test of a mission concept so in this

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concept uh crew in a vehicle that's

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either orbiting say the moon or mars or

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perhaps approaching a planetary body

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let's say an asteroid would control a

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robot on the surface so this is an idea

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that's been proposed in several human

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exploration architectures and what we're

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trying to do is

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test the concept see what sorts of

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technologies are needed in order to to

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realize it

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one of the hardest parts of any

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planetary mission is safely landing on

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the surface and a robot that's on the

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surface and controlled by crew that's

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orbiting or approaching can get a lot of

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the sort of precursor exploration work

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done so for example

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a robot could be used to help prepare a

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landing site to make that surface

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landing

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simpler for example scouting out a clear

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area checking whether the ground is firm

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um also possibly even building a landing

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strip um to prepare for for humans

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that's that that all seems very

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reasonable but it also begs the question

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about why is this so hard i mean i i see

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kids in the park flying remotely

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controlled airplanes

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but but you got some other issues to

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deal with

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yes well for one thing the kids

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controlling rc airplanes are looking

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directly at the airplane so their their

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response and what how they their

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feedback to that control is very uh

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immediate whereas a crew member in in an

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approaching vehicle or an orbiting

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vehicle will have some communication

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delays

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there are still some pretty vast

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distances between where the robot is and

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where the crew is

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and so

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those delays even if it's just a few

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seconds

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can make controlling

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a robot very difficult it can make

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joysticking for example

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hard to do because you need

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so much higher level of concentration

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in order to perform that task

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so what we're doing is called

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supervisory control where

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our robot is is pretty smart it can it

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can perform a variety of tasks it can

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keep itself safe and so

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the astronaut will actually send a

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sequence of tasks for the robot to do

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and just monitor how it's doing its job

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making sure it's doing it correctly

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so then if the robot has any difficulty

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you know gets into trouble

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he can step in with manual control

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now you've done this once before with

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chris cassidy in june how did that one

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go that went really well we were very

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happy with how that that went uh chris

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managed to uh pick up how to control the

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robot very easily so he he completed not

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only the the first phase of our our

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simulated mission but was able to

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continue on and get ahead of schedule

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and start deploying a telescope

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so we did have one slight hardware

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hiccup towards the end of the session

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where our deployment device had

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a little hiccup and so um we think we

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fixed that for this next session with

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luca you mentioned that he picked up on

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how to control a robot how does the

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astronaut control the robot what's the

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interface what do they use so as i

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mentioned joysticking is very difficult

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in this situation so what we use is a

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graphical user interface um or gui uh

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it's running on a laptop onboard the

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station and um luca will see images from

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the robot's cameras

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he'll see 3d renderings of the of the

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robot and its surrounding terrain

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and then he'll use button presses

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basically to control the robot when he's

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taking over manual control

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he'll

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be able to send fairly simple commands

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so for example drive forward one meter

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or rotate 15 degrees to the right or

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take an image

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and so those are you know fairly low

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level commands that he can do manually

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for the most part though he'll be just

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uploading uh

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basically

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task plans to the robot so the robot

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will will run his tasks autonomously and

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he'll step in just when needed

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in terms of of this experiment what are

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the objectives now i think you said that

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you're really picking up on the same

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simulation that you started with the

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first the first session that's right so

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our simulated mission is um to deploy a

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radio telescope on the far side of the

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the moon so the idea is that um crew

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either orbiting the moon or the uh l2

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lagrange point on the far side of the

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moon could control a robot on the far

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side that doesn't have direct line of

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sight to the earth

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and would deploy a radio telescope so

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this radio telescope would be used to

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look at the cosmic dawn so this is

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just it's after the big bang when when

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the first stars and and the first

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galaxies were forming

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um so in the first session chris

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performed what was basically scouting of

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the site so this is we've had orbital

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data of the site and we have an idea of

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where we want to deploy the telescope

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and so first we need to send the robot

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around to make sure that that area is

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actually clear for deployment so the

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second part that we're going to do today

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that that luco will be performing is the

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actual deployment of the telescope

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so the telescope's made up of um three

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arms and the arms are the are long

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strips of kapton film

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um and for an actual radio telescope the

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antennas would be embedded in the kapton

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film uh for our test it's just the film

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we're not actually deploying a working

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radio telescope

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and so the the robot will actually spool

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out these these roles of captain film

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you didn't just happen to have a spare

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radio telescope playing around

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no no um yeah that's uh pretty

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complicated and for for our purposes

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we're looking at the

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rover's job not the radio telescopes job

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so it's fine that the uh there aren't

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actual antennas in the cap

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and in this case it's a again a planned

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sequence of movements rather than just

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luca

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indulging himself

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yeah so the robot is going to spool out

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you know each each of the the antenna

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arrays and

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he's going to monitor to make sure that

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there aren't any kinks and that the

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robots you know

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doing it properly also we'll be taking

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images as we deploy to make sure that

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there are no tears in the uh in the film

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and uh you know that

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that it's all going according to plan

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and then he can take over manual control

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if uh if it isn't

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assuming this goes as you have planned

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what's the next step are there more

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similar sessions with this crew

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uh yes we're going to have one more test

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session next month with the crew of

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expedition 36 so we haven't been

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assigned our crew member yet so

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perhaps if we get karen nyberg we'll

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have a trifecta of expedition 36

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and then after that we'll we'll look at

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our data um to determine how well our

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systems worked uh where we can improve

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um you know where are the gaps in the

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current technology so so what

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technologies do do we need to develop in

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order to to have this mission concept

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work um and then k-10 our little robot

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is slated to do some science field work

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in in the mojave desert next year

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then that be part of

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of this uh experiment as well um it's

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it's a different uh project uh it's it's

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similar work to what you would use the

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robot for on the ground but we won't be

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using uh crew members to control it all

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right maria thank you very much for the

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update and uh and good luck with with

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today's experiment thank you maria blatt

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is the payload developer and project

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technical lead for the surface tele