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this month we're going to be

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highlighting a lot of the technology

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tests and demonstrations happening on

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board the iss

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today we're going to talk about one

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that's actually using a piece of

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technology that many of you probably

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have in your hand right now

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lori meigs is standing by at nasa's

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payload operations integration center at

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the marshall space flight center to tell

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if you have a smartphone then you

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already have half of this experiment

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it's called smart spheres and it

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combines a smartphone with the spheres

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free-flying satellites that are on the

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station for a technology demonstration

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we caught up with terry fong from nasa's

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so with spheres we've been doing some

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work over the past few years of turning

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it from being a satellite into a

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free-flying robot

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so what does that mean well for us that

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means actually converting what was

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originally designed as being a micro

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satellite something the size of a

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volleyball into a robot and to do that

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we've had to add a processor a cameras

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uh display and if you put those all

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together that basically turns into a

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smartphone

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wow

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that kind of blows my mind so how did

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you get make that connection that you

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could do that well you know we were

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looking for a way to to basically add

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you know sensors and a camera and

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processor to the spheres we were sitting

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around in a conference room everybody's

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got their smartphone on saying boy

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wouldn't it be great if we had some sort

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of you know high-powered computer in a

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box and everybody's like oh like one of

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these um and then a few years ago that

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turned into our first smartphone which

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we sent up on the last shuttle flight

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and we've been using it on station for

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the past three years are these like our

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typical smartphones or they're a little

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more advanced well the the

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new one the project tango phone has got

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a built-in 3d sensor it's basically the

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same kind of thing you see in an xbox

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connect it allows you to basically do 3d

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mapping tracking of things uh in the

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real world and we hope it'll allow us to

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take the the spheres and fly freely

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throughout the us segment

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why is that important to learn how to do

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that well right now the spheres operate

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with an external positioning system it's

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a set of these these ultrasonic beacons

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which allows us to fly around in

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basically a two by two by two meter

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volume so pretty small test area if we

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want to fly anywhere in the station we

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have to find uh you know technology that

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will let us just flee uh you know freely

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fly and uh this new smartphone may be a

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way of doing that we've done actually a

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lot of testing on the ground we also did

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a series of parabolic test flights on a

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zero g aircraft back in february to try

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to test out the smartphone and the

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combination of the smartphone with

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spheres and we're pretty confident that

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we'll be able to actually do this 3d

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mapping and navigation

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so the obvious question might be

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so you can do that with the parabolic

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flights and you can do it on the ground

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why do you have to do it on the space

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station well because there are there are

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a lot of things that you just can't you

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know do you know on the ground fully uh

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even though the parabolic flights are a

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really great way of getting into

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microgravity you only get microgravity

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for a few seconds maybe maybe 10 to 12

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seconds um so your testing is really

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hurry up let's test for a short period

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of time hurry up let's test for a short

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period of time it's not like in space

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it's not like in true microgravity the

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work we've been doing with spheres

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really is just a precursor to what's

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going to come next

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my current project the human exploration

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telerobotics project is actually

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wrapping up in just a few months but

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there is a follow-on project the

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telerobotics 2 project that's actually

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going to develop a new free-flying robot

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for the space station and we're going to

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take everything we've learned with the

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smart sphere system and roll that into

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this brand new free flying robot that

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hopefully we'll see on station in the

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next two to three years

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and as we take a live look into the

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payload operations integration center

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busy at work today they are helping with

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the rodent research project we want to

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remind everyone that the destination

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station technology forum will be here in

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huntsville october 27th that will be

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broadcast live on nasa tv from 9 to 10

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a.m and you'll hear from many other

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experts like terry fong who are talking

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about the technology demonstrations and