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so we've been talking a lot about earth

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observations from the international

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space station this week and one

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experiment actually about to celebrate a

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very exciting anniversary and that is

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the high definition earth viewing to

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learn a little bit more i'm joined today

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by carlos fontana one of the principal

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investigators co-principal investigators

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for the project to learn a little bit

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more so carlos first off start me off

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where did the idea for hdev come from

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and what was the original intent of this

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payload

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a few years ago

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the iss technology and science

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development office

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found themselves in a situation where

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there was a space available outside the

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columbus module

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where the payload had been delayed

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and the program wanted to utilize that

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space so

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the science technology

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or technology office came to me and said

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what about we put some cameras out there

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what would it take to put some cameras

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so i drew on a little piece of paper

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well we need a camera an encoder and

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then we need a router we can put so many

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cameras in the enclosure and drew in a

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little piece of paper

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and my colleagues went on their way

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a couple weeks later a few weeks later i

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get a call you are the principal

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investigator for this payload we are

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going to build an enclosure and put it

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outside columbus

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and the

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design

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build certification and delivery will be

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done in a short period of time and we

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broke a record nine months from

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conception to delivery and so what was

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the real purpose i mean it's more than

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just let's put some cameras on the

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station what was kind of the scientific

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purpose for building this payload and

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putting it on the station absolutely as

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you know the space environment

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and the radiation in space is very harsh

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to electronics so you may observe from

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time to time that some of our images

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have white little dots those are pixels

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that are missing because of radiation

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and the sensors

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get damaged because of it so we are

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studying uh you know we count

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missing pixels on the images on the

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views and specifically on the view on

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the nader view

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we have seen a couple of pixels missing

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but we're very surprised because we

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thought it would be much more so the

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enclosure where the cameras are are we

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think are partially uh protecting uh

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radiation from hitting these sensors

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okay and so and it wasn't just nasa

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people building this payload you guys

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also got students involved which is

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always very fascinating when you're a

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student to say you know my i built

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something that went into the space tell

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us about how you got students involved

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well there is a program called hunch

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high school

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students united with nasa

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for creation of hardware i believe it

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stands for and these students

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participated with our team and they

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built some of the brackets that actually

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hold the cameras in place and hold the

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encoder so they built part of the little

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brackets structural pieces that hold the

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payload you can see here the payload on

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the right there is an enclosure that's

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the finished payload in those little

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windows that you see the cameras are

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behind and those cameras partially are

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held by these brackets that the hunch

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folks built very cool and so this video

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so april 30th marks the two-year

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anniversary of yes

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tomorrow so this has been streaming live

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the whole time and students were even

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involved with the streaming of this

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video too so first off tell people where

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they can go watch this right now and

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again how are students involved in this

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well

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you can watch this around the clock at

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http colon forward slash forward slash

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slash

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hdf you go to that website and you not

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only see the downlink but you see the

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track of the station going over the

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earth so you can tell when the station

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is at night time and unfortunately when

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it's night you cannot see much with hdf

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but then

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as you see

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the station come into the daylight uh

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there is the picture yes

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and so you can watch this around the

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clock

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and

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we have sometimes we've had

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to get take the payload off the air for

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several reasons and we get calls you

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know there are

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folks in europe folks all over the world

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and they say where is my h death

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now there's other ustream

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also streams hdf and you stream it makes

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hdf available to many people out there

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there is an outfit that builds little

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boxes that tell you when this station is

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coming above you and shows you the hdf

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images so there's several

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companies that have used

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hdf as well as museums schools and uh

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universities so how is how are school

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how have schools been using hdev with

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students

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it's a very interesting we got a call

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from our partners in europe and germany

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in particular

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and they were very interested in

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development developing

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materials

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curricula for the students

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in their geography lessons and what

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better than using live views from earth

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and identify those land masses now hdf

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has a limited capability but you can

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control certain functions you can switch

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cameras the forward viewing camera the

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native viewing camera the aft cameras

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through

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just a workstation that's connected

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through our systems and so you can

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command the cameras so we

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partnered with a university of bonn in

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germany

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and we schedule their participation

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where they can command the camera so the

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students comment the camera switch

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cameras and see the results as they're

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flying over certain

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parts of the world that they're

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interested in okay well so we're about

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to hit the two-year mark how

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how has it been going you you mentioned

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you've only seen a couple of pixels had

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the cameras held up as well as you

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thought are they much exceeding

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exceeding

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every expectation now radiation

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sometimes affects electronics and we

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have encoders we have switchers and we

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have had a few instances where all of a

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sudden the system locks up we have not

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only seen that on the external payload

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but also inside the vehicle with our

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television system

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so

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we

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rigorously

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studied what happened

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component by component analyze the the

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telemetry and it was just a latch what

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you call a latch up

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and um so

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all we did is what you do with your

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computer when it freezes up we

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cycled it rebooted it in some cases

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powered it down powered back up bingo

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there it is sometimes the simple stuff

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works absolutely absolutely so what's

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what's next for hdev you know it's been

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two years how long do you think the

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experiment's going to go and you know

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what what's maybe the next step is there

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going to be an hdev2 well

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as i said before the reason why we're on

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board is because a payload was late

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so that payload will be taken into space

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now with spacex 13. that is sometime in

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2017

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and when this payload arrives our hdf

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will be taken robotically off the

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columbus module

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and the new payload will be placed where

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we were

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and they bring it down so i'm looking at

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the fall

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of 2017 year and a half from from now

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more or less

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and we expect hdf to continue working

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the way it has been for two years now

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when

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we bring down hdf or take it off station

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we have been looking at the

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any

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places where we can

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attach a new payload build a new payload

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however there aren't very many places we

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need data we need power we need certain

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requirements so i'm thinking that rather

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than replacing their hardware we may

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just replace the function because we're

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putting new high-definition cameras so

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we may just leverage the function of

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those cameras and train them to the

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earth when they're not being used and

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have that as a substitute or future hdf

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we're working that plan it's not a done

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deal but that would make sense okay well

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again the high definition earth viewing

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cameras marking their two-year

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anniversary now on board the

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international space station been

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providing some spectacular views and

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they will be for only another year and a

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half so if you haven't been checking

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them out make sure you go do that right

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now carlos thanks again so much for

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joining me always a pleasure to talk to

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you here in mission control