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the next dragon cargo ship headed to the

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international space station with

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thousands of pounds of provisions for

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crew members and experiment supplies

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is coming to the international space

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station on april 8th

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it also is including a first of its kind

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experimental module an expand expandable

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capsule that will be attached to this

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station for a two-year period and today

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joining me

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uh to talk about the bigelow expandable

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activity module or the beam

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is rajib descuta the international space

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station research integration manager and

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the project manager for beam rajib

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thanks for being with us today good

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morning

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so why don't we start off um if you can

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give us a quick history of expandable

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modules and where bigelow fits into that

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story

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first of all thank you for giving me the

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opportunity to come and talk about this

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exciting beam project

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nasa actually

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started

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looking at expandable technology in the

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early 1990s as part of the transha

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project

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and that work went on for about

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a few years five or six years then in

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the early 2000s congress actually

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canceled the project due to funding

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problems

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and then all of that work was documented

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in a u.s patent

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at that point

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bigelow aerospace purchased that patent

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from nasa and started developing

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commercial inflatables

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and

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actually

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launched two expandable modules called

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genesis 1 and genesis 2. both of them

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were successful but

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the thing to be noted is that none of

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them are human rated but their

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performance from a leaked standpoint and

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structural standpoint were very good

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so this went on in the mid 2000s now in

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twenty

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bigelow aerospace gave nasa a proposal

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to launch a human rated small expandable

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module to the international space

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station just to prove the technology for

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future deep space applications

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so that is the short history of

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expandables and its association with

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nasa

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excellent

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so um

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this expandable module is made out of a

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very different type of material than

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we're used to we're used to the metal

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modules right so can you tell me about

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the similarities and differences in the

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strength and protection of the bigelow

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module expandable modules actually from

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a strength standpoint gives equal or

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better protection than metal modules

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just to give you a point of reference

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for

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expandable modules because they are made

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of non-metallic soft goods materials

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the safety factors we have to certify

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these materials to is much higher than

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comparable metal metal structure

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so from a unit weight standpoint

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just the primary structure of the

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expandable

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is happens to be lighter

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if you compare

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per unit weight but if you add all the

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other protective layers like the mmod

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and the external mli

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we don't really see that much of a

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weight benefit the main benefit of

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expandables is in the launch volume

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because you can pack the expandable to a

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tighter volume and then expand it in

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space

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now in the case of beam

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um

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it expands to four times its packed

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launch volume so that's a considerable

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advantage from a launch standpoint

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and from a protection we also look at

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protection from orbital debris mmod

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micro material normal debris

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and the beam module has been tested

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and proven to be equal or better than

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equivalent metallic modules wow yes so

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then what are the overall goals of this

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demonstration for the beam being

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attached to the international space

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station for two years

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the first and foremost goal is to

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obviously

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prove the expandable technology

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to with a human rated

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spacecraft like iss

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and

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we call it

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increase its technology readiness level

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called something called trl to nine

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which is a flight demonstration so

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that's the first and foremost objective

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of it

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and then

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some of the other main objectives are to

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test its long-term performance from a

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leak standpoint

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to characterize the radiation

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environment inside the module

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to also characterize the thermal

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thermal conditions inside the module and

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the air quality

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so those are those are the main

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objectives of the beam demonstration and

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we have a suite of sensors which i can

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describe later

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to collect

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all of these data

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inside the beam module

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so then what will happen whenever uh

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beam is attached how is describe how

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it's going to be deployed once it's

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attached to the tranquility module

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okay so so i'll start off from dragon

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launch if you don't mind so dragon

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launchers as you know i mean falcon 9

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launches with the dragon spacecraft on

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april 8th

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and

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in 48 hours or

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around two days it it bursts to the no

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two nader

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docking birthing port of space station

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right

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and then

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five days later after dagon births five

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days later we're going to use

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the space station's robotic arm which is

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called the ssrms

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to extract the beam module from the

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dragon's unpressurized trunk

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translate the arm and birth it to the

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note 3 aft port okay

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so once birth

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the module will stay in that condition

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until the end of may

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at that point we we plan to deploy and

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inflate it okay

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and there is a lot of preparations that

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goes on

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as part of the inflation process

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after the you know once it's birthed the

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crew has to

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first pressurize the vestibule

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which is the section between

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between the beam and the note 3 that's

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the vestibule section so they have to

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first pressurize that prepare the

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vestibule for the deployment in other

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words set up the deployment controller

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make the electrical connections and all

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that and then once all of that is done

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then the crew starts

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in expanding the beam module

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first with iss air through a tiny port

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and a valve called npv

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np valve okay

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so we use isis air to inflate beam to

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its full full shape and a pressure of

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about 0.4 psi

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once that is done then the crew through

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the controller

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releases the air from the eight

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inflation tanks from beam

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and that air

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pressurizes the beam module from 0.4 psi

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to roughly about 14.7 psi

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to equalize the pressure with iss

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so once that is done beam is fully

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inflated

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then

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the crew does a 80 hour leak check we

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want to make sure that the module is not

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leaking due to transportation handling

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and other conditions which we don't

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expect but just in case

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after the leak check is done

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the crew then goes in

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uh

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prepares the vestibule ducting to start

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the air airflow inside the module and

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does first first ingress

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takes the air sample for safety reasons

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then once once we are sure the air is

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clean and habitable

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then the crew gets in first ingress and

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then starts the airflow that's how the

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operation goes basically so it's going

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to be inflated in late may and they have

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to go through all of these checks and

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balances right but it'll stay there for

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two years so what's going to happen

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during that two-year period so we are

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going to during the two-year period

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we're going to collect

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all of that

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technology data that i just talked about

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so we have two radiation sensors

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called the rem and the ram passive

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badges with both those two of those

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sensors is going to characterize the

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radiation environment inside beam

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and

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actually we have those

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identical two sensors in this in the

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metallic part of space station all the

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other modules so what that'll enable us

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to do is compare the radiation

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environment inside beam

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with the radiation environment inside

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space station so that'll that'll be a

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very important piece of data

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then the other sensor we have is called

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the deployment dynamics sensor

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that is actually going to use at the

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time of deployment to measure

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the dynamic loads that are generated

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during the deployment

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and the third sensor is called the did

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sensor that

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and that the function of the dit sensor

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is to

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measure any mmod particle impacts on the

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outer surface of beam

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and then we also have the last one is

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the temperature sensor that measures the

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thermal environment inside beam

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so

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in the two years span we are going to

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get all of this data

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okay so it's going to be valuable data

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for us to study the expandable

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technology demonstration on iss

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and also we'll have the on orbit crew

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around two to three times every six

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month increment

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and

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check the surface condition of the

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module get surface and air microbial

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samples

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and then change out these radiation

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badges the ram badges because they need

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to be changed out from time to time and

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sent to the earth for analysis

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so this is the overall kind of plan for

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the next two years and uh hopefully

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it'll give us some very good data a lot

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of data a lot of data you have two years

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to do it and we hope to see some really

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good results from that so then after the

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two year period what happens to beam

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after the two year period

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because space station program needs to

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use that port for other purposes we have

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to

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jettison beam

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dispose beam by the robotic jettison

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method so the

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space station arm again goes and

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grapples beam

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through the aft

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aft side grapple fixtures

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and then takes it to the nader extreme

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nader position of space station and

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releases it for

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for jettison for jettison and

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uncontrolled re-entry and we have we

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have done all our analysis to show that

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it will take about

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less than a year for

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for that jettison object to come and

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reach the earth so that's how it's going

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to be disposed after two years wow yeah

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so two year period a lot of data to

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collect we are very much looking forward

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to its launch on april 8th the crew is

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going to grapple it on april 10th rajiv

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i'd like to thank you for being with us

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today we are very excited for the launch

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and to see all this data that is going

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to be coming on over a two-year period

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rajib descuda international space