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and welcome back inside mission control

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houston that again a look at the

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upcoming demonstration flight of the

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cygnus vehicle to the international

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space station uh as part of our lead up

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to that all this week i've been talking

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to a few of the flight control team that

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are going to be here in mission control

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houston monitoring the flight in charge

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of supporting the vehicle on its final

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approaches to the international space

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station joining me now one of those

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console positions billy jones he's one

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of our robo flight controllers

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now robo you're probably the only

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self-explanatory flight control position

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in this entire room let me say that your

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robotics yep uh we do robotics and we

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actually like robo because it's not an

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acronym doesn't stand for anything

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except robotics you guys are special

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with that yeah yeah we're the uh so

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you're in charge of robotics what what

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systems are you controlling on board the

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station so um we control uh the external

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robotics um for the the canadian uh

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robotic systems um so we've got the srms

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canadarm2

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we also have the mobile base system the

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mbs that goes with that and then the mt

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that allows us to move up and down the

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truss

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um addition we have dexter the spdm that

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we've been using a lot these days from

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the ground

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and then inside we've got the

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workstations where the the crew is

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actually flying the arm from uh when we

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have them doing operations

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uh a couple robotics we don't control of

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course the gem rms that's uh belongs to

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japan and then inside like the spheres

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and robonaut those are our other groups

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so we've got the the big industrial ones

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outdoors so you guys got the biggest

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toys yeah absolutely okay well this

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upcoming orbital flight robotics are

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going to play a huge role okay what are

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robotics going to be what are what are

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they in charge of

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sure um

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so with with uh orbital you can't dock

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direct to the station uh you've got to

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be captured uh by the arm

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so basically between orbital and the vvo

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teams you know they're they're going to

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get us to a point um a few meters below

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station um and then essentially turn off

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the thrusters and we're going to reach

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out and grab them

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so that's that's kind of the critical

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operation for us is is getting the crew

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to fly out and successfully grab cygnus

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uh and then from there um

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reconfigure the vehicle and and we move

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it up to uh underneath node two for the

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install

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that's kind of our big task once that's

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done we get to hang out for 30 days

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while people are messing around inside

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and then we do the opposite we're going

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to uninstall it we're going to take it

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to release point again several meters

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below station and

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put her back in the stream okay so walk

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me through the rolls real quick once it

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gets there and it kind of turns off it's

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thrusters it's just floating there the

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crew is actually going to be the ones

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controlling the arm to reach out yeah um

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it's it's such a dynamic situation

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because even though the thrusters are

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off it's essentially floating in space

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so it can move it can drift

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so we've got two crew they're going to

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be on the hand controllers and the rws

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inside the cupola actually have a great

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view outside

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um and and they're going to be flying in

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for the grapple

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what what me and my team are going to be

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doing is we're responsible for getting

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the system set up beforehand so getting

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everything powered on we've been doing a

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series of checks um and even training

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with the crew leading up to this point

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um so we've been in charge of that whole

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operation and we do most of the ground

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commanding to get everything set up and

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kind of in position for him

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so then on capture day we're gonna turn

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it over to them uh they're gonna fly in

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do the grapple uh they're gonna fly all

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the way through install and basically

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we're gonna be you know monitoring the

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the health of the system making sure

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everything's going good up through

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install um and then once they're done

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with that um you know we will take over

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from the arm from the ground and we can

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go do you know any other operations

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we've got in that time frame okay is

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there anything special happening because

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i mean is the crew always the one that

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reaches out and grabs the vehicle

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because

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and and then also docks it or is that

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does that different differ between the

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various cargo vehicles so uh the crew is

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always going to fly the capture um for

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uh for dragon for cygnus and for the

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htvs

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just because it's a dynamic situation

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and you want to have that quick feedback

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you know we got a little bit of lag

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being on the ground

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for for the other vehicles we've

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developed a ground control install so

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basically for for htv and dragon at this

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point you just you grapple it the crew

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says all right we're done and then the

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ground takes over for the install

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for orbital because it's a demo flight

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um we are going to have the crew fly all

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the way through the install um the plan

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is that for downstream flights we'll

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take over from the ground as well for

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the uh for the maneuver and the install

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okay well a lot of everyone else i've

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been talking to for this

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they've been training for this for years

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they're really excited is there any

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particular moment you're really going to

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you know sigh relief you're going to be

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really excited

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um i definitely think the the big sire

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leaf is going to be captured um now of

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course you know we've got a couple hours

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of operation to do the install after

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that but of course you know building

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station with the shuttle program we're

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pretty well versed on on the install

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but this you know it's the first time

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with a new vehicle so that the capture

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is gonna be gonna be a good moment to

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get to um of course the crew's been

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training for a long time you know i

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personally been working on this flight

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close to two years and there were teams

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before me who are handling the robotics

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so it's uh it's been quite a road to get

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here um

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but you know just just with the

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coordination between the safety teams

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with the engineers with actual orbital

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you know

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making sure that we've got this

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operation as safe as it can be

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crossing all the t's out in all the eyes

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all right well we're certainly looking

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forward to it again billy jones one of

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our robo flight controllers the only

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position here in the room not made up of

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an acronym of multiple words so it makes

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my job easier

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but again billy thanks so much for

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coming on giving us a little insight

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into the operations for all the robotics

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for this again orbital launching on

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september 17th and docking on september

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22nd you can see all the major times

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here on your screen now we're going to

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be bringing you live coverage on nasa tv

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like we do with all of our dynamic

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operations

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again orbital will be the second u.s

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commercial provider to come online for

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resupplying the international space

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station really looking forward to that

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next week make sure to tune in