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let's welcome to mission control via

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telephone right now dr ray sedwick with

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the uh

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spheres rings experiment welcome to

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mission control dr sedwick all right

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thanks very much

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we're happy to have you here over the

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phone of course the international space

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station getting ready to celebrate the

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15th anniversary of its first element

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launch and a host of research that's

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been going on aboard the international

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space station

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since the first crew members arrived uh

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mike hopkins worked with one of the

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experiments that you're most familiar

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with a little bit earlier this week

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could you describe

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your experiment for us a little bit yeah

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certainly so our experiment is called

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rings

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it's an acronym it stands for resonant

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inductive near field generation system

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it's a a piece of hardware that is being

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used to demonstrate two technologies

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one technology is what we refer to as

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electromagnetic formation flight and

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that's the idea of using magnetic fields

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to control the relative positions and

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attitudes of spacecraft in a cluster

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and the other technology is a form of

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wireless power transfer that would allow

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one spacecraft to transfer power uh to

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another spacecraft

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and uh this uh hardware is being flown

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as a

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spheres facility uh located on the iss

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and

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the one of those that makes

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peaks my interest the most is the uh the

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power transfer how do you transfer power

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between satellites like this without any

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cables

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well the there are many mechanisms that

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one could consider for power transfer

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this particular one

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is essentially an inductive

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power coupling it's the same type of

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power coupling that you would find in a

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transformer

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if you have an electric toothbrush

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probably the charging station and the

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toothbrush operate on the same principle

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usually you have to have the primary and

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the secondary coils of the transformer

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in close proximity to get efficient

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coupling

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but if the coils are actually tuned to

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the same resonant frequency

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then you can get a much more efficient

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transfer of power between the primary

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and the secondary even if they are

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separated by a fairly substantial

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distance

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that's really interesting and and so

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what exactly you're trying to use to

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learn specifically with these

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experiments as they relate to your two

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major objectives

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well in truth the the real advantage of

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operating on the iss is not so much for

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the wireless power transfer we can

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demonstrate that on the ground

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it's really focused on the

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electromagnetic formation flight because

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while we can do experiments on the

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ground to demonstrate the principle

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behind emf as we call it

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we can only do it really effectively in

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kind of a two-dimensional uh setup where

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we could have multiple vehicles

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traveling you know on a on a flat

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surface

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on what we call a flat floor

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using air carriages and we can

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demonstrate the principle but the the

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dynamics becomes much more complicated

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when you consider

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kind of the full

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six degrees of freedom where we have

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three translational and three trans and

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three rotational degrees of freedom for

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for each object so by being able to

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operate uh in the microgravity

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environment of the iss we can really

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exercise the full control algorithm and

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dynamic capability of the system

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i noticed watching the experiment

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earlier this week that there were at

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times one of the

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rings experiments was uh

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uh anchored with uh bungee cords uh

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what's that about

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so um so in in kind of developing the

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technology we're pursuing kind of a

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crawl then walk then run paradigm and

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the first thing we wanted to do this is

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our first science session

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and in the first science session

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to simplify uh the dynamics and also to

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make it easier for

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for mike to be able to conduct the

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experiments we decided that that

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anchoring one of the vehicles using the

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bungees and only have the other vehicle

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flying relative to it would be the

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easier way to go in the second science

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session

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we will most likely have both of the

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vehicles untethered and so mike's going

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to have to be able or whoever i guess

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next time it might not be him will have

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to be

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able to you know initially position the

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vehicles and somewhat in the proximity

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of where we'd like them to be

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and then because the control

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happens as a result of forces generated

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between the vehicles both of them are

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going to be moving the dynamics is much

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more complicated as is the control

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coincidentally we're watching some

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recorded video right now that shows

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hopkins positioning the two satellites

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without the bungie so exactly what you

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were talking about that we're watching

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right now

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can you tell us a little about your

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background where are you from where'd

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you go to school where do you work now

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uh sure

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so i grew up in western pennsylvania and

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i did my undergraduate degree at penn

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state university

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and then i moved to boston and i did my

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master's and phd at mit

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and then i stayed there for 10 years

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after that

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i was the associate director of the

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space systems laboratory in the

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department of aeronautics and

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astronautics for 10 years

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and then uh in 2007

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i moved down to the university of

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maryland uh where i established the

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space power and propulsion laboratory

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but i still uh work very closely in

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collaboration with the folks back at mit

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and they actually were co-developers

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along with a company called aurora

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flight sciences in developing this

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technology

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and do you have students involved in

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your research i sure do so i had two

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students here

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students

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one completed his master's degree

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over the summer

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one is working on her doctoral degree

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right now and there have also been

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several students involved at mit working

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on the the control algorithm development

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there's obvious benefits to the work

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that you're doing for

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space vehicles

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in orbit or on long-duration

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transfers to other locations of the

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solar system is there any application of

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your research that will help folks here

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on earth

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well i think the primary

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way that it would impact at least like

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the electromagnetic formation flight

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it's really a space dedicated technology

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where it

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could help

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folks on the ground is is in

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providing more capability for future

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space systems and so

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using clusters of spacecraft instead of

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individual spacecraft

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will allow

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certain capabilities like getting higher

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resolution images maybe on the ground or

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in space

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which could be used

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for

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improving

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you know weather prediction

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things like that the the wireless power

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transfer

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has many terrestrial applications and

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we're not necessarily

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leading the charge on that there are

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several companies that are pursuing

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development of that technology to be

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able to power let's say small

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electronics like your laptop or your

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cell phone without having to plug them

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well ray sedwick uh with the spheres

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rings we want to thank you very much for

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joining us here at mission control and

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explaining your experiment we've enjoyed

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watching it uh on the downlinks uh today

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and now we understand more about it