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hi welcome to the space station flight

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control room where we have melanie

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miller who is the robotics officer who's

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going to be overseeing the birthing of

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the cygnus cargo craft tomorrow thanks

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so much for joining us mellie melanie

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thank you

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well so i i guess the crew gets a lot of

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the glory with the uh the arrival of a

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cargo vehicle but y'all actually do a

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lot of the work here on the ground can

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you kind of go over the division of

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labor there and what your job is

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i'm a robotics officer so i sit here in

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picker one

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and i do the setup for the crew we do

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training for the crew before

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the operation

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and then

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after they have done the capture we go

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ahead and move cygnus

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into an install configuration and get it

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set up for the crew to do the bolting to

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bolt it to station

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okay so why why is it divided like that

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why not have the crew do all of it

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we try to do as much as we can from the

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ground so that the crew has time to do

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experiments and science

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we want to maximize that

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as much as we can so while we are doing

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the install tomorrow the crew is going

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to be doing some preparation on robonaut

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to give robonaut some legs and refurb

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robonaut that's exciting so good use of

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their time

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that's right

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well um

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they've been training on and off for

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this for days do you all do something

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similar here on the ground do you have

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training to do as well

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yes we do um actually

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there's a long process to get certified

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to be a robotics flight controller

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it takes you know about a year in to get

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certified to do the first position in

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our back room

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and

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it takes about three to five years

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before you get certified to do the front

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room position so there's a long training

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process and that's generic training

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and then we also have specific training

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where we do simulations with the rest of

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the team here

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and

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we fly through the procedures in our

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simulators as well to

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both to make sure the procedures are

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good and also to refresh our memory of

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exactly what all the maneuvers are going

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to look like and what cameras provide

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the best views of what we're doing

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so that's all part of prep how long have

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you been doing this job

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uh wow uh since 2001

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so 13 years

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probably done a few of these by now yes

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i have does it get routine at all or is

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it something new every time

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there is some routine to it but when i

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first started in robotics we were

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assembling space station so

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it has definitely evolved

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the tasks that we've been doing you know

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when we first started we were taking

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modules out of

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shuttle and installing them

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and now we are capturing visiting

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vehicles which we didn't do too many

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captures during shuttle time frame it

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docked on its own

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the other big change is we're doing a

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lot more maintenance

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with spdm robot that we have

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that's the dexter robotic manipulator i

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think on the we use on the end of the

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robot robotic arm normally right that's

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correct so um

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everything has evolved now that station

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is assembly complete into different

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operations and it is pretty different

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every week as far as what we're doing

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that week whether we're

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changing out a failed rpcm or we're

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capturing a visiting vehicle or

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unloading new payloads

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so it's always something different

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i guess you probably usually have

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something new to train for every week

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then is there much left to do for you

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now before the

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cygnus arrives

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i personally am about finished i have

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one task to do before i can leave today

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and then i come in at about 2 am

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to get ready for capture but there is a

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shift overnight

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um at the roboconsole and they have

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quite a bit of work to do we have a

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to-do list for them

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they are going to be surveying the port

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that we're going to stick cygnus to to

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make sure there's no debris there and

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there then they're going to maneuver the

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arm to a hover position

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that hover position is

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should be aligned to cygnus when it

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arrives we've pre-designed that so the

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crew should be able to just fly right in

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and capture i think we're seeing some uh

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animation of that now

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and they're the other thing that they're

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doing is they're setting everything up

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for the crew so that like i said we want

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the crew to have

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the most time to do science so we're

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going to go ahead and set up all the

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video for them the cameras and do all

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the prep to have the workstation set up

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so that all they have to do is come on

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and do a few steps to make sure they

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like what they see

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and then they can be ready for capture

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okay sounds like a lot goes into the

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actual capture

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can you tell me is it fun what does it

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feel like to to fly a robot in space

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basically

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when we're actually flying the robot

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we're pretty focused just like you would

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be if you were flying a plane or driving

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a car

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to make sure we're doing everything

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right and we're responding correctly to

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everything we're seeing

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so

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it can be kind of intense from that

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perspective

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it's more after you're done with uh

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accomplishing something that you can

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kind of celebrate and think wow i flew

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a robot in space

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and um

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accomplished that mission so very cool

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is there anything you can compare it to

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for the people here on the ground is it

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similar to a video game or is it

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something completely different

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it's a it's a little bit like a video

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game but i would describe it more like

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driving a car in close proximity to

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other

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things where you're using your mirrors

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in our case we only we have cameras so

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it would be like driving a car with a

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bunch of cameras and trying to figure

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out

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uh how to parallel park it or

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park it into a garage full of other

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items so that you don't hit anything so

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that's that's the most

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uh similar event on the ground i think

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fair enough um i guess it doesn't

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actually end at the birthing for you

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though you'll have steps um and work to

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do after that takes place as well right

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yes after we're done um

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installing

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cygnus will go ahead and we have a power

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down sequence we do to put the arm in a

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safe configuration

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make sure that

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it's safe from a thermal perspective

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and then we'll wait till the crew has

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got some jumpers connected to cygnus so

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we can power cygnus through station and

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then we'll turn off the power that the

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arm is providing to cygnus

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okay well good luck we uh we appreciate

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you coming telling us all about this and

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we'll definitely be watching tomorrow at

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the birthing and the capture as well so

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uh we'll hope that your that everything

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goes as planned we hope so too thanks

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again this was melanie miller the

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robotics officer is going to be