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and you're back inside of mission

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control houston dan hewitt here and i'm

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joined now by ray bigenus uh one of our

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visiting vehicle officers with the

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flight team here uh we're doing um kind

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of we've been talking to a few people as

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we're getting ready for the first

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orbital launch of cygnus scheduled to

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launch uh next week on

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september 17th docking with the

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international space station on september

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22nd

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now ray

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you're a visiting vehicle officer real

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quick what is that what is your role

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here in mission control yep um i am a

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visiting vehicle officer vvo uh we're a

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space station flight controller that's

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responsible for

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the dynamic flight of any visiting

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vehicle coming up to the space station

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so we look at um

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cygnus which is coming up next week uh

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the spacex dragon vehicle jax's htv

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esa's atv

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and there were all the russian vehicles

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so uh we kind of have our hands full

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it's a lot of traffic going to and from

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the space station these days absolutely

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so we look at the dynamic flight of the

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vehicles we make sure that

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the vehicle's on a safe trajectory as

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intended and we make sure that

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they're following the timeline that the

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crew is involved in the right way

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and everything's proceeding safely

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now this is going to be the very first

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cygnus to ever get to travel to the

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international space station is there

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anything special you guys are doing for

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this flight any preparation you're going

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through yeah this is this has been a

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work in progress for the last three to

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four years for for me uh some of us in

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mission operations have been working on

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cygnus for five six seven years i know

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orbital's been working on it for a long

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time too so it's a long time coming oh

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yeah absolutely this is a

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this is a huge milestone for us this

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first flight

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we've had to

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watch as orbital designs of the vehicle

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make sure that it meets all of our

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requirements for safety and for the the

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prudent flight of the vehicle

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we've had to

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generate all the new ops products all

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the timelines

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all the procedures that the crew uses

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we've had to

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the biggest thing for the first flight

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is that we've had to design the

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demonstrations that the vehicle does to

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prove once it gets in orbit that it's

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it's viable

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what are some of those demonstrations

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well so it's not just flying up and

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docking no it doesn't go straight well

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it is kind of going straight to iss but

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along the way

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it's doing 10 demonstrations uh all the

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way from just you know proving that it

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can perform attitude control

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all the way to

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uh you know making sure that it's it's

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close in proximity sensors are

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working the way they should so there's

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ten demonstrations and we've had to

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uh you know develop the pass fail

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criteria for those we've had to work

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with very closely with orbital to make

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sure that you know here's the standards

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that we expect uh the vehicle to perform

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to and

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please show us along the way

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so it's going to be it's going to be an

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interesting

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a couple of days prior to the actual

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capture as they demonstrate the full

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capability of their vehicle is there any

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part of the flight that you're

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especially looking forward to that

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capture or anything

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the last 200 meters is is really where

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where we train for um

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the most dynamic part of the flight

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we're pulling up you know cygnus is

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pulling up right underneath iss

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it's inside what we call the keep out

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sphere we don't allow any vehicles

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inside the keep out sphere unless they

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have demonstrated that they can approach

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safely and have the proper fault

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tolerance so inside 200 meters is where

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the where my job really comes into play

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we give them a go to approach if

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everything's looking good and

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in particular inside 200 meters

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the the crew is involved quite a bit the

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iss crew they're looking out the window

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they're looking at their camera views

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they're looking at telemetry coming from

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cygnus and making sure that the vehicle

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is in the right place

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okay now

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cygnus makes it there it'll be the

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second u.s commercial company to be

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resupplying the international space

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station what are some of the differences

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between you know from your position

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monitoring these vehicles compared to

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these commercial vehicles compared to

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say the international partner of

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resupply ships like an htv or an atv or

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a uh progress yeah that's a really good

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question

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first and foremost it's different people

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from different countries

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the two american commercial vehicles are

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of course in america but

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you know they're two completely

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different companies that have different

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uh ways of doing things different

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personnel

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completely different procedures

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sometimes so

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in dealing with

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more than one at a time sometimes it's

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hard to keep track of you know the

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little subtle nuances of this one versus

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the other ones

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and of course when we start dealing with

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jaxa and isa and the russians

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you know there's of course

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the language differences are

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hard to overcome sometimes

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the vehicles are all completely

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different so

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we have to keep track of

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the design of of one versus the design

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of the other and then at the end of the

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day we have to tell the crew how each

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vehicle is different because they may

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have just

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grappled htv for last month and now

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they've got a cygnus coming up we don't

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want them thinking that they're the same

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because they're completely different

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vehicles

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okay well yeah like you're saying a lot

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a lot of preparation work goes into

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not only for the astronauts but the

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teams down here on the ground getting

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ready for these vehicles

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cygnus a fairly historical milestone

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will be the second commercial provider

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to come online resupplying the

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international space station right here

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will be our visiting vehicle officer

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inside mission control houston during

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that uh very historic moment for the

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station and uh human

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space flight in general

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ray thanks so much for joining me here

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today giving us a little insight into

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the inner workings of the team behind

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the

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upcoming demonstration i really