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>> Welcome to the International
Space Station Flight

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Control Room.

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I am here today, we were
talking about some of the work

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that Koichi Wakata
is working on today

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to install what is called
the CubeSat Deployer,

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so the NanoRacks.

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And so here with me
today is Mike Johnson.

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Mike is the NanoRacks
Chief Technology Officer.

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Thank you for coming out to
talk with us about CubeSat

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and its deployer and what is
going on in space right now

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and some of the other
[multiple speakers]

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that have arrived on the Cygnus.

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>> Yes, thank you.

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Yeah, just to briefly
explain what NanoRacks does,

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we started out with
flying payloads

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on the inside of
the Space Station.

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And to date we've flown
approximately 120 payloads

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since 2010.

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And they range in spectrum
from say biological experiments

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to little fluid experiments.

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We've flown a lot of high school
and university experiments too,

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so we're, as a company
we're trying

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to get say the normal person
into space, if you will.

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And one of the things that
happened last year, JAXA,

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the Japanese space program
gave us the opportunity

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to launch a CubeSat, which is
a little small satellite It's

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about four inches square
cube, four by four.

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>> What I'd imagine.

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Much smaller.

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>> Yeah. They're just, they're
really small satellites.

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They are little cubes.

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It was a standard that
was devised about 2000.

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We haven't flown
a lot of CubeSats

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yet because they're
kind of hard to fly on.

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>> I think we're actually
getting some video.

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This is from the small
satellite deployment.

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>> Yes, there you go.

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>> This happened
back in November.

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>> Yes.

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>> So it is very similar to
that one [multiple speakers].

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>> Yes, exactly.

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And that was actually our
second launch of CubeSats.

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The first launch occurred
in October of 2012.

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>> Sure.

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>> And so it happened at the
company we were originally going

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to use the Japanese
J-SSOD deployer,

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which is a very fine system, but
we realized that, we started,

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the phones started
ringing off the hook.

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Everybody wanted to fly
CubeSats on the Space Station.

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Launch them off the
Space Station.

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So because of this
high demand we decided

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to fabricate these deployers.

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>> OK. And so you brought
actually, this is the deployer.

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So this is what Wakata is
working to install now.

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>> Yes. He's installing actually
eight of these deployers.

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To give you an idea,
we have a totally

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of 33 separate satellites
that we flew up on Orbital 1.

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In fact, we believe this will
be a world record deployment

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of a number of satellites
in one deployment.

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It will take a few days.

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It will take probably
a couple of weeks

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to deploy all the satellites
from the Space Station.

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>> And so how many
is he going to have?

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>> Well, today he's installing
eight of these deployers.

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>> OK.

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>> It will take two
experiment air lock openings

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to actually deploy
all the satellites.

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So the first.

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>> OK. And we're getting
some downlink right now.

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>> Right [multiple speakers].

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And what Koichi-san is
installing here is the control

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box for the deployers and
then he later installed eight

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of the deployers.

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And eight is the maximum we
could fit in the air lock.

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>> Wow.

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>> And so we're trying

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to maximize the air
lock utilization.

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The air lock is just
behind Koichi-san right now.

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And so once he's loaded all of
the deployers onto this pallet,

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the MPAP pallet it will go
out through the air lock,

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and then the Japanese robotic
arm will grab the pallet

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that he was putting
the deployers on.

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>> And so this here, this end, I
don't know if you can show this.

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>> Sure. I can show this.

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>> Is this where
they're launched?

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>> This is a little door.

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It's like a little barn
door that opens up.

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We've got the CubeSats are,

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there are typically two
satellites that are arranged

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in here, and they have a
little spring on the back.

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And so this little actuator
in the side here goes,

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connects to the control box, and
from a Japanese control center

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on the ground, the command to
fire the satellites once the arm

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and everything is in position,
they press the button,

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and that's what happens.

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The CubeSat deploys.

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>> They just kind of
shoot up into space.

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>> And they actually
go a little bit,

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the CubeSats are deployed
a little bit below

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and then they go in front

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of the International
Space Station due

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to orbital mechanics.

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And so they get out of the
way, say of the Space Station,

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so they won't collide
with the Space Station.

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>> Sure.

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>> And they begin
their operations.

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So to give you an idea of what
CubeSats actually do we have,

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the majority of our CubeSats
on this flight right now are

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from a commercial company
that is doing imagery work.

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>> OK.

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And they are basically
these small telescopes.

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They're three cube units
long, so about 300 millimeters

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by 100 by 100 millimeters.

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And they look down at the Earth
and take pictures of the Earth.

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>> Wow.

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>> And eventually I think the
goal is to send these images

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to people like Google Earth.

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So, you know, from a, I guess

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from a user standpoint
this is probably one

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of the fastest links
from space to Earth.

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>> Yeah.

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>> You know, you'll be
able to look at your house

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on Google Earth from
these satellites.

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>> Well, that is exciting.

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>> Now, we also have a couple
other really exciting payloads

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on board too or CubeSats.

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We have two Lithuanian
satellites

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and one Peruvian satellite.

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These satellites will
turn these countries

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into space faring nations.

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They are the first
satellites to be deployed

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in space from these nations.

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We also have a couple
other commercial CubeSats

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that we've flown on board too.

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But, as I said, it will
take two air lock openings.

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So we'll be going probably
throughout the better part

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of February deploying
these satellites.

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>> Well, that is very exciting.

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Thank you so much for coming.

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We're just about
out of time here,

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but real quick can you tell
me about when are these

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to be deployed, the ones
that he is installing now?

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>> The first set would be
February 6 I believe we're going

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to start the deployments.

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And then the second set
hasn't scheduled yet,

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but it will probably be
a couple weeks later.

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>> OK.

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>> So just a quick
shout out too,

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I have to say this
is all Texas built.

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>> Texas built.

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>> For our Texans
in the room here.

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>> Sure.

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>> But Quad-M, a local
manufacturer just outside

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of Austin, McDade,
Texas made most of this,

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and we're just really happy

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to put the Texas
folks to work on this.

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>> Very good.

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Well, we are all proud
of Texas here in Texas.

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>> Thank you.

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>> Thanks so much
for coming out again.

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>> I appreciate it.

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>> This is all very exciting
and fascinating to hear about,

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and we'll be watching.

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>> Thank you so much.