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good morning everyone this is our launch

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contingency news conference from

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Vandenberg Air Force Base and here to

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discuss what happened this morning with

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our Taurus launch with the glory

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spacecraft is Omar Baez the NASA launch

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director from the Kennedy Space Center

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Ron gray be the general manager for the

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orbital sciences corporation launch

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systems group rich Straka

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the deputy general manager for

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operations from the Orbital Sciences

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corporations launch systems group and

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Mike Luthor the deputy associate

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administrator for programs for the

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science Mission Directorate at NASA

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headquarters and we'll begin first with

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Omar Baez Omar thank you George

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it's a very difficult situation we're in

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here and I'm going to try to explain to

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you what happened last night and into

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this morning as far as the countdown and

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all the events as we got through them

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and what we know to this point the last

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night our team came in at 10 p.m. to

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open up the checklist for the Taurus t9

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glory mission we set up the facilities

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in a range powered up the Taurus launch

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vehicle we checked out the FTS system we

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got through our polls we got into the

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hot count we encountered no anomalies

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with the spacecraft or the launch

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at t-minus five minutes we did our last

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poll and we lifted off at 209 43 this

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state zero burn nominally for a minute

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and 25 seconds

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stage 1 then ignited in a millisecond

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later we separated from the stage zero

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and continued from flight we did that

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till 2 minutes and 45 seconds where we

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had indication of burnout of the stage 1

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and we had ignition of stage 2 about 6

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seconds later after stage 2 ignition we

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were expecting to see the fairing on the

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t9 separate we didn't see the indication

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of fairing separation there was other

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indications such as performance loss

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that we saw a little bit later on and

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and all indications are that the

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satellite in rocket order is in the

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Southern Pacific Ocean somewhere and

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that's all I have for you all right

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Thank You Omar

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and now to ron gray be the general

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manager for the orbital sciences

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corporation loft Systems Group rod

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thanks well let me just say this is a

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pretty tough night for all of us a

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little over two years ago we had a

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similar tough night when we conducted a

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Taurus launch for the OC o mission that

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mission suffered a failure the failure

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was a failure of the fairing to to

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separate we conducted an extensive

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investigation of that anomaly and we

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traced the most probable cause to a

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failure of the fairing separation

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initiation system we spent the last two

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years doing the analysis on what went

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wrong the last

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redesigning the system and testing the

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components of the system we went so far

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as to completely change out the

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initiation system to a system that we

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use on one of our other vehicles the

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Minotaur for vehicle and in the

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intervening two years that that system

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has flown successfully three times so we

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really went into this flight feeling

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confident that we had nailed the fairing

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issue and then we came up with the

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let me just say that there's a great

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deal of emotional investment on the part

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of all the players on any spaceflight

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but that's probably doubly so on a

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return to flight effort like this one

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I'll just speak briefly to the you know

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this is the emotional state if you will

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of the of the team and I mean the broad

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team the launch team the spacecraft team

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on both the industry and the NASA side I

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would I think it's not an understatement

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to say that tonight we're all pretty

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devastated but we will recover well but

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the team will bounce back because

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they're all professionals and orbital

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sciences will bounce back with the

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Taurus vehicle let me turn it over to

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rich Straka and rich will go through

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some of the differences between the

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system that we flew on Osio and what we

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flew here tonight all right thank you

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rod and which track has the deputy

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general manager for operations for

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orbital sciences long Systems Group rich

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okay to give you an idea of what we

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changed I'll just go through a brief

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description of how that what the fairing

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is and how it works the Taurus uses a

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clamshell fairing and the fairing is

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held onto the vehicle we're constrained

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the vehicle with what we call frangible

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joints and those joints are meant to

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explosively fracture when commanded to

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do so when the joints explosively

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fracture

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the fairing is then in two halves and

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there are piston pushers that push the

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fairing off in the OCO vehicle and

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previous tourist vehicles we use what

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was called a hot gas system to do that

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pushing job so there was a pyro

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technically initiated combustion process

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that generated hot gas and the pressure

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of that hot gas pushing the Pistons

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pushed the fairing halves apart

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as Ron said in the investigation we

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identified the most probable cause of

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the OCO failure as a failure to initiate

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that hot gas combustion process so what

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we did in response to that is we swapped

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out or we changed out redesigned the

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deployment system to use a cold gas

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system which is a pressurized bottle of

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nitrogen that then when commanded

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functions by pressurizing those same

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Pistons and pushing the fairing halves

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apart it uses a completely different a

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Nisshin system and a completely

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different pressurization methodology

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than the OCO system and as Ron said we

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we really felt like we had the problem

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nailed and that particular system has

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flown three times last year a very

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similar system almost identical system

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flew and our Minotaur four product lines

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successfully three times last year so

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right now we're crunching the data but

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there was really not enough data that's

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been processed so far to really tell any

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more than the fairing didn't didn't

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deploy and that's about all I have to

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say thank you rich and Mike Luthor the

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deputy associate administrator for

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ministration for programs for the

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science Mission Directorate and NASA

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headquarters Mike well clearly the

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science Mission Directorate and the

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Earth Science Division is extremely

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disappointed in the loss tonight we had

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worked closely at all levels of

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the agency and with our industry

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partners to evaluate this risk and we

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felt going in that we believed we had an

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acceptable level of risk

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clearly we missed something so we've now

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got to go off find out what that is

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fix it and that is in fact what we will

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do in the meantime we we have lost the

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glory mission it would have made

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important measurements for the

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understanding of earth as a system and

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of the impacts of climate change

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however the earth SMD science Mission

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Directorate and the Earth Science

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Division will continue to contribute and

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make significant contributions to the

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understanding of the earth with its 13

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existing operating missions and a cadre

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of aircraft and ground networks and data

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systems contributing to our science

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research in addition we'll continue to

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plan the path forward into the next

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decade with a CAD Dre of more than a

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dozen missions to be launched in the

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next 10 years all right

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thank you Mike and we're ready now for

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questions please give your name and

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affiliation when the microphone comes to

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you we'll start in the front with Nora

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Thank You Nora Wallace at the Santa

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Barbara News Press Omar you said

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something about other indications of

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performance loss can you expand on that

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at all yeah what you see is since we

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didn't jettison the fairing you see

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we're we're expecting to shed weight as

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a fairing comes off and obviously

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wouldn't shed that way and the rocket

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just can't carry you into orbit with

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Janine's skully santa maria times Lompoc

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record can you I know it's still early

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and you haven't thoroughly gone through

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the data but can someone explain how

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similar this is to the OSI Oh failure

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do you have indication of partial

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separation is there any kind of

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assessment that you can give in terms of

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Oh coz I guess I can take that we really

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don't have any of the data processed yet

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it's going to be several hours before we

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get a good look at the data so it's too

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early to tell whether it's it's the same

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thing as we faced last time in terms of

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the you know the symptoms and the data

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pattern we just don't know right now

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what I can say is that we did put

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additional telemetry points and we do

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have additional instrumentation

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on this flight so we do have a leg up on

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determining root cause this time and but

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it's too early to tell if it if it is in

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fact the same cause Omar are you going

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to be able to pinpoint more where the

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satellite might have ended up yeah like

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we should be able to it's just too

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preliminary to get the trajectory of

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word ended up but seeing that it's

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similar weight to what oka was and the

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same launch vehicle performance it's

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likely physics says it's likely in the

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can you explain is there any kind of

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difference between the system that's

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been used on glory versus what's flown

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successfully on Minotaur and in terms of

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trying to figure what what happened the

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the fairing system itself is is very

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similar but they are different fairings

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between the two vehicles the there are

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different sizes for one thing the

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Minotaur fairing is quite a bit larger

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but it does use the same basic

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mechanisms the same frangible joint

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system for for the separation or the

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frack

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during process and the jettison system

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the piston system is is almost identical

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so but but there are differences in

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terms of the fairing size and and the

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geometry of the fairing from NASA

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standpoint if you can speak maybe expand

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a little bit on how the earth science

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group and the scientists here who've

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spent decades on this mission rebound

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from this and how how the crew might

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bond together in this to recover from

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this loss well as as as you mentioned

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the these missions are developed as you

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well know over a course of a number of

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years by some very dedicated people

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overcoming great odds and develop that

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really as a family and and so they

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respond to disappointments as a fan as a

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family would quite frankly and so I

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think you know if you can imagine how

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any family responds to a loss that might

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occur they've overcome other obstacles

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previously

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I'm sure they'll overcome this one

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although it is quite painful after

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having dedicated so many years of your

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life can you comment on the status of

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co2 will it still use the current plan

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is to fly on a Taurus XL is that what's

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the plan now

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is is in development and a couple of

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years away from launch yet we'll have to

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evaluate you know the outcome of this

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investigation and and we'll adjust our

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all right in that event saying millon