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so the six-man crew of expedition 44 has

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been working on a wide variety of

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experiments especially since they got

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back up to six people in late july

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here to tell me a little bit more about

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what the crew's been doing and what's

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ahead for expedition 44 is the lead

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increments scientists jorge sotomayor

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first off jorge thanks so much for

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joining me today it's always great to

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hear from the people who are behind the

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scenes getting all this work done

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getting the crew all the science they

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need so why don't we start off with

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something that's been making that's been

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making a lot of news and it has a really

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big milestone coming up on august 10th

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veggie this is a vegetable

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growth experiment tell us a little bit

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about you know what it's been doing and

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what that big milestone is going to be

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yes uh veggie we are all very excited

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about veggie uh we're growing lettuce um

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in the facility and actually veggie is a

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plant uh growth experiment uh or the

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facility and we have a

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different uh we can choose from

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different uh plant material to grow okay

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uh at this time we're growing uh lettuce

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and um we're getting ready to

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harvest uh the crop and actually that's

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gonna be on monday uh

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this next week

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and

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we are all very excited uh we're going

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to have

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several activities uh surrounding uh the

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harvest of the lettuce including

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actually the consumption of the produce

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uh produce this is the first time that

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the astronauts have received the

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go-ahead to actually eat what they grow

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so we've got a couple of

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suggestions for the crew some recipes

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including

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uh maybe a

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chicken lettuce wrap or maybe a

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lettuce chicken teriyaki

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or use it as in a fajita yeah which they

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have ingredients yeah that's that's

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really big so why and i mean why is that

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so huge why is being able to grow your

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own food and eat it in space such a big

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deal yeah yeah eventually as we want to

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extend the duration of humans in space

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and eventually go to mars

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we want to make sure that we have the

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capability to

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produce

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fresh food

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for the astronauts and it has the

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nutritional value of course according to

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what you're producing what you're

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growing but it also has a psychological

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value where the crew actually they

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really enjoy

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growing and seeing the plants grow uh in

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space getting a little taste of earth

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with them up there oh yes

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absolutely so switching gears a little

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bit there's a lot of technologies

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fascinating technologies being

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created and tested and you know

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everything onboard the international

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space station one of my favorites has

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always been robonaut the seventh crew

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member on board the space station

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where's the scott kelly worked with it a

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couple of weeks ago i believe where is

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robonaut right now and what's ahead for

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that project yes scott helped us a lot

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with the uh

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intravehicular uh

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activity uh mobility test uh with

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actually basically what uh a previous

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crew

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steve swanson installed the legs and an

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additional torso

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but now we're checking out and making

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sure that everything works properly so

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scott helped us with with that and as a

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matter of fact in the upcoming weeks we

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have another session to complete the

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checkout and and actually do the the

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full uh iva mobility test so it's going

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to be taking the first steps

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yes yes let's hope yeah that's a that's

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what we're hoping for yes we're shooting

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for that in addition eventually what

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we're going to have we're going to have

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is that the crew

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the ground

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control crews will be able to actually

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give commands to robonaut so that it

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will actually come out of its

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compartment on its own and then and also

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stow back in on its own so that will

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save crew time and in the future as the

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technology develops uh eventually we

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will actually to have the capability of

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having a robot

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robonaut or a robot that can go outside

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the space station and do uh the evas

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extra vehicular activities instead of

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sending a crew member which puts uh puts

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them at risk yeah

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okay well and something else that has

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been happening outside the station is

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it's i mean it's been deploying

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satellites they've been using a

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technology on board to deploy these

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cubesats i know there were some that

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went out recently what were those doing

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in i mean how how cool how revolutionary

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is that kind of technology yeah it's

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pretty neat yeah and actually last month

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we had 16 satellites deployed um 14 of

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them are from the planet labs doves

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satellites so it's a fleet of satellites

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and they're taking pictures uh of earth

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from space and especially in the areas

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with a higher population and more

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agriculturally developed areas so they

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send that information back to the ground

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for

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the users

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and then also we had two additional

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satellites on that same uh deployment

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sequence um one of them was the uh

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centennial one and that one was

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actually uh testing new technologies uh

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uh for developing a future aircraft and

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actually that one in particular is

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looking at uh identifying

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and tracking

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other satellites about the same size or

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the the one cube satellite so this one

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the centennial one is tracking those uh

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satellites and then we have the archive

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three which is a longer uh satellite and

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that one uh ideally um and and the

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objective is to develop a technology and

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explore

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asteroids or

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other

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bodies around the inner solar system

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okay so i mean that could be something

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really important as we continue you know

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pushing out to going and grabbing a

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piece of an asteroid and then heading

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out to mars

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right now exactly exactly okay and then

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the final one i think we wanted to talk

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about today was spheres so those

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colorful bowling balls floating around

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inside the station always doing a lot of

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cool stuff what are some of the

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experiments that spheres have been

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involved in and what's ahead for those

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yes actually we've we've done a couple

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of uh spheres slush runs and we have

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that look at that yeah actually that one

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looks at how the liquids behave in

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microgravity when they're moved so

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basically

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as as you know

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with the rockets uh that we use they

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have liquid propellants inside now the

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the phenomena and the and the fluid

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dynamics involved uh

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and the analysis of the fluids as they

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are launched and then go into micro

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gravity it's not completely understood

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so we hope to get more information from

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uh from this investigation uh from slush

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so actually we have the the two

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satellites uh moving

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a liquid inside a container and with

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cameras looking at that so we can

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understand better what's happening yeah

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and there is another thing spheres is

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doing again real soon too isn't there

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yes yeah next week we're going to have a

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spheres zero robotics session

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and this one is going to be a joint

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actually it's going to be very

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interesting because we're going to have

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the russian uh crew members helping out

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with the

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actually the the actual test run

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as well as the usos uh crew members so

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it's going to be a joint effort between

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the the two nations uh in getting the

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the

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experiment going and this is a very

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interesting experiment

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because

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students on the ground design algorithms

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to

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make the satellites the bowling ball uh

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satellites and they get to control them

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they control them from the ground yes

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well actually they designed the

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algorithms on the ground and then the

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crew implements uh the algorithms on

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orbit so it's going to be very

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interesting to see how it goes and who

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wins the competition all right well

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again that's just a look at just a

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handful of the hundreds of experiments

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that have taken place and are taking

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place for expedition 44. you know lead

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increment scientist jorge sotomayor

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joining me today thank you so much for

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this little behind-the-scenes look real

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excited to see things like spheres and