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one of the

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experiments that are brought up on board

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the

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satellite project that uh is going to be

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demonstrating some new technology and we

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have uh joining us remotely chris

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boshhausen who's going to be telling us

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a little bit about that experiment

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thanks so much for joining us chris hi

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brandi

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so tell us a little bit about the dub

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project what is it and what exactly is

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your involvement in it

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so i work at planet labs and planet labs

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is a company that's trying to provide

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frequent images of the entire earth

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and so our ultimate goal is to launch

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100

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very large

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cameras in space in cubesats and provide

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high frequency

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updated high-resolution maps of the

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earth and so on the um cygnus we

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actually launched 28 of these cameras

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to run a number of experiments um and to

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test them out in

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in a fairly low orbit um and get used to

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running large numbers of satellites in

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space

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that sounds like a an ambitious project

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can you tell us a little bit about the

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satellites what their capabilities are

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what they're meant to do

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yeah so each satellite is called a dove

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and uh we picked that name because um we

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really wanted to you know represent the

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amazing use cases we think we could have

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for our data like you know um just

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helping life and you know humanity on

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earth and helping our ecosystem and

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understanding what we're doing to our

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planet so the dove satellites are

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about

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30 centimeters by 10 by 10 centimeters

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or about 12 by 4 by 4 inches so a

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standard three cube sat

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they have almost i guess 80 of the

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volume inside is a giant telescope and

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so we wanted the to fit the biggest

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telescope we could in a cubesat

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and then uh we have all of the other

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things that a satellite needs like a

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control system radios storage and

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reaction wheels for moving the satellite

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around

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and all of these are meant to be taking

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photos of the earth for for how long

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so um the ones that we're putting in

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higher orbits we actually plan to have

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operational for a couple of years and

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provide continuous coverage um the

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nanoracks orbit that that we go into

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from the space station

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um is a little lower and so the

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satellites will last somewhere between

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you know five to seven months on average

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and how i think this is not the first um

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flock that you've put into orbit how how

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how's your other flock fared and uh can

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you tell us any anything about the

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results from it

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so great yeah so um we actually launched

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two so far and so the um first one was

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on a previous antares flight um and uh

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that almost all of those satellites

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thing all the two of them have deorbited

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now and so the ones we have now are the

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replacements for those

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um

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wakata was kind enough to spend a lot of

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hours um assembling together the largest

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dispenser packs you see in these images

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um and then the satellites were taken

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out of the hatch

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and ejected into space over about a one

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month period

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um so you know one of the cool things

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about launching from the space station

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is

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normally when you're on a rocket

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everything happens so quickly and

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there's no live video no one ever sees

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their satellites

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and so we're really privileged that

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we're able to get these really amazing

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high-res pictures of our satellites in

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space it's a rare and and um you know

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fascinating opportunity and the pictures

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look so good

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i remember seeing some of the video of

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those satellites launching and it was

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exciting to see so how does this new

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round um add to what you've already done

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what what does it bring to the project

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so one of the things we're trying to do

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at planet labs is um is sort of redo how

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um system engineering is done on

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spacecraft so if you think about it

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system engineering was more or less sort

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of codified as a discipline around the

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time of apollo and a lot of the rules

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that i used to use when i was at nasa

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and other places haven't been updated in

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a while

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so meanwhile this entire industry of

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software was born um that has completely

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different approaches to solving problems

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so we've tried to build satellites as if

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they were software

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and so what we have on um this next

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flock are bug fixes and feature updates

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and so we have things we've added and

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from the lessons we learned from the

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first block we're able to you know roll

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out about 200 small changes which we

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call bugs so bug fixes

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well how exactly did you get hooked up

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with the cygnus cargo craft is has that

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been a good partnership for you

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oh it's been amazing the folks at

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orbital have been very kind and

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one of the interesting things about

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running a hardware company like software

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is you um you want to release as late as

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possible because you still might have

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bugs and so the folks at orbital have

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been very receptive to late delivery as

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have our nasa partners but i think the

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the real key to this has been nanoracks

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who have provided the service for us to

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get access to space in this way and

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um

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you know the amount of sort of

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things that you have to take into

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consideration when you're launching on a

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manned to a manned space station is huge

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and nanoracks do a splendid job really

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helping us work through those processes

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and make sure that what we're delivering

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is safe for the astronauts to handle so

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we wouldn't be in space without in this

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way without anorex

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i'm glad you are in space uh what's

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what's the next step for you what

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happens after this

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so while we with the birth um the the

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the capsule signals capital birth of the

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station this morning or yesterday and

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the hatch is opened i guess as you just

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said um so

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we can't wait to see

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our satellites pulled out of cargo and

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and um starting to be assembled and then

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like on the previous flock 1a um you

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know they'll go out in space and we'll

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probably have a small you know launch

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viewing party here and um i've never

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seen so many engineers scream when they

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see a satellite actually spit out of the

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space station

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and float off into space so

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um that i guess is going to take about

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two weeks and so that gives us a little

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more time to prepare for the first

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orbits around the earth um so we're

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setting up our ground stations now

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for contact with the satellites in about

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two weeks

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all right we'll be watching here as well

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we can't wait to see that that again was

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chris boshhausen uh the co-founder of

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planet labs which is uh sent up a

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new fleet of satellites that's going to

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be launched from the space station soon