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nanotechnology is a part of uh

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some of the uh tremendous amount of

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technological research that is ongoing

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aboard the international space station

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uh which serves as not only an orbital

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laboratory but as a test bed for

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technological research that will serve

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us

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in exploration of the planets in an

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asteroid and deep space in the years

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ahead one of the unique technology

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demonstration capabilities of the

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international space station also extends

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to the outside of the orbiting complex

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in the form of a robot the satellite

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servicing capabilities office at nasa's

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goddard space flight center in greenbelt

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maryland oversees the robotic refueling

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mission demonstrations on the station

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and jill mcguire the rrm project manager

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is joining us this morning on space

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station live to talk about it jill good

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morning and thanks for joining us today

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thank you very much for having me it's a

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pleasure to be here

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great to have you with us today jill the

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robotic refueling mission suite of

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experiments is not new but uh it is

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somewhat familiar to those of us who are

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paying attention

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give us a little glimpse about what uh

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the robotic refueling mission is and

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what it does on board so the robotic

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refueling mission is a payload about the

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size of one meter cube it's on iss on

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elc 4

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and it was

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it has various spacecraft interfaces on

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it that we've used to test out robotic

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manipulation techniques to demonstrate

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the feasibly the feasibility of using a

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robot to

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refuel repair and maintain satellites in

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space

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we've completed numerous demonstrations

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including wire cutting cap removal

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blanket manipulation and finally an end

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to end fuel transfer

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about a year ago

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we are looking forward to continuing

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that with rm2

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and that's what we're going to talk

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about today some of our new hardware has

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just been recently launched on atv5 so

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um the photo of rrm that is up on the

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screen in that you

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can see that there are four different

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tools on board that the dexter robot the

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canadian

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robot uses to do these demonstrations

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and its rm is designed to be modular so

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that we can switch out those tools and

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we can switch out the task boards in

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order to do additional experiments which

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is what we're taking advantage of

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jill uh refueling or fuel transfer is

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not new to human space flight in fact uh

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as you mentioned the automated transfer

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vehicle that brought your new hardware

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up as well as the russian uh progress

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vehicle contains fuel that is uh

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transferred for a variety of purposes

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but there are still unknowns to this uh

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to this art uh in human spaceflight why

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is orbital refueling so complex

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well the reason it's complex is because

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the interface was not designed to be

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robotic friendly

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the a fuel valve on a satellite is

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closed out before launch with a series

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of caps and then those caps are wired

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shut

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because the

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fuel is so flammable they want to make

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sure that the interface is safe during

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launch and that those caps can't back

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off and that's great in a world where

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you never want to touch that interface

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again but in order to enable

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doing this with a robot we had to

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demonstrate that we could safely cut all

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those wires and remove all those caps

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and then open up that valve transfer

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fuel through it and then safely close

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the valve and show that it was sealed so

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none of that

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fuel is

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uh leaking out and that's what we were

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able to do successfully through by using

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a series of real innovative tools the

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key to our technology is that we design

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an innovative tool

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that can bridge the gap between a

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non-robot friendly interface and the

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robot itself and so the

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the technology is in the mechanisms and

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the innovation in the tool that can do

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that use that robot to do that

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manipulation

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now jill you know as well as i do that

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nothing in nasa comes without an elegant

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acronym and the next in this series of

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robotic refueling mission demonstrations

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is called viper for visual inspection

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posable invertebrate robot tell us a

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little bit about viper so viper is our

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next robotic tool that we um that is

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just launched on atv5

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and it is a really cool tool it has

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three different camera systems on board

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the goal is that we are trying to take

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um

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we want to be able to inspect the work

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site prior to

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doing any of the manipulation that we i

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just was speaking about so

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the camera systems that are on viper one

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is a

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camera on a boroscope where it can go

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about

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30 it's got it's on a 34 inch length and

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the last two and a half inches of it can

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be manipulated in 90 90 degrees in four

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opposing directions so the robot

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operators on the ground can actually

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command the end of the camera or the the

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little snake and see and look around in

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different directions so that's one

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camera that camera is actually the

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smallest camera that has flown in space

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by nasa it's 1.2

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millimeters and it is

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about the size of a dime if there's one

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picture that'll we provided that shows

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just how small it is in comparison to a

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dime

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and it does have a led array around it

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and it can see about a half of a

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millimeter

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about two inches away so it's not the um

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high resolution or high definition

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cameras that are you know we were used

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to seeing down on the ground but

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it was developed for the

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medical industry

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and so it can you know it has good

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enough to see very close up for what we

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want to see the other real nice camera

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system that's on there is what we call

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the motorized zoom lens and it's a

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custom

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camera that we built that has a 8 to 24

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millimeter optical zoom lens and we

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mechanism so that it can

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with using just again

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very small technology we're flying half

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inch stepper motors these are the

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smallest motors um to our knowledge that

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have ever flown in space and it can see

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it can zoom in from two feet away it can

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resolve like again a half a millimeter

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about thinner than a credit card so

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um between the use of those two camera

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systems and the third camera is just

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like our standard rm cameras where the

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robot operator uses it to focus on the

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tip and see what they want so they can

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get a nice orthogonal view when they're

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doing the um manipulation so that third

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camera is the heritage just like we've

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flown on our other four tools but the

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two new cameras are the one that's on

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the

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ground controllers or both and what is

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the schedule now that the hardware is on

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orbit

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well

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you know of course uh space station

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robotic scheduling is you know tied into

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multiple logistics with visiting

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vehicles and

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our hardware has to be transferred

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outside of the gem through the gem

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airlock so

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so the folks are stationed are working

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to schedule it hopefully we've been told

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next spring unless a window opens up

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earlier this fall we're ready when they

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are and we're just waiting for the

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logistics and all the stars to align

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so that they can do um they can start

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the the transfer operations

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because we have three pieces of hardware

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to transfer out the new viper tool plus

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two new task boards that we are flying

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um they're gonna it looks like the plan

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will be to do a transfer operation in

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one segment and then

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come back after everything has been

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mounted on rrm and start the robotic

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operations at a later date so we're

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hoping again for the fall time frame for

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the transfer but it may not be till

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spring when we can start the whole

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series of operations

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that's fascinating jill and we certainly

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will be there along with you and your

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team as uh viper uh takes the next step

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in the uh robotic refueling mission jill

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mcguire the

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project manager for the robotic

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refueling mission from the goddard space

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flight center in greenbelt maryland

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joining us today thanks a lot jill and