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good morning everybody and welcome to

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today's post-launch news conference it's

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always a great day in florida when we

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have one of these and today we have a

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bunch of happy people here after the

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successful launch of the united launch

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alliance atlas v rocket

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carrying nasa's

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radiation belt storm probes into space

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and we're going to

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begin with some opening comments and

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then we'll be happy to take questions

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like to introduce to my left

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rick fitzgerald rbsp project manager

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from johns hopkins applied physics

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laboratory

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mike luther

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deputy associate administrator for the

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science mission directorate at nasa

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headquarters in washington

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and nikki fox rbsp deputy project

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scientist for johns hopkins applied

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physics laboratory

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thank you all for coming and rick we'll

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begin with you

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okay well uh

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first of all i'm very happy to report

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that we have two healthy spacecraft on

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orbit and uh

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many thanks to uh ula and launch

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services uh program for getting us on

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orbit giving us a great ride

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and injecting us in exactly the orbit

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that we wanted to be in so thank you

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very much to them and congratulations to

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the whole rbsp team

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uh for a job well done and uh we're

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continuing with our checkout and

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our 59 and a half days now of

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commissioning activities in front of us

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but we're very happy with the progress

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to date

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and

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jpl had their seven minutes of terror

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recently and i had my hour and 55

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minutes of terror tonight

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i had dark hair when we launched so

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glad to say that we're on orbit now and

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everybody's happy thank you

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mike

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uh yeah what a beautiful launch uh it

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was uh by the way and for uh some of us

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lucky enough to be outside

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uh i'll just note that you could follow

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the

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outside

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what you couldn't see

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was a series of rather intricate

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maneuvers

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that the

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the centaur

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second stage performed in order to get

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the twin spacecraft in their appropriate

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orbits which they accomplished quite

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well

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um

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so it was just a beautiful launch uh on

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behalf of nasa and the science mission

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directorate i'd like to

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say thank you and and congratulations to

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our partners ula

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united launch alliance and applied

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physics lab

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and now that the spacecraft are safely

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uh in orbit uh the real fun begins and

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we get to

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after the commissioning period that rick

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mentioned we get to

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then

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begin to perform the most detailed study

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of the earth radiation belts that has

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ever been undertaken

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so we're just as pleased as we can be

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and

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really

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i want to say thanks to

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the entire team

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from all our partners thanks nikki

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okay so um today uh 11 years hard work

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was realized by the science team as we

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stood a number of us stood together

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watching the rocket lift up the pad and

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as mike said it was the most spectacular

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sight um

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i thought i was going to be blown away

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by what i would see and it didn't even

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it just was way way better than than i i

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could imagine uh sonic boom just wiped

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out any cloud in the sky and um it was

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like it was welcoming the spacecraft up

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uh they're now um at home in the van

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allen belts where they belong

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and i think we we've all actually now

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finally breathed out um now that the

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four solar panels are out on on both of

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them so as mike said for the science

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team uh the real work now begins um

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one big milestone was getting up there

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the next big milestones are all of our

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scientific discoveries um and we were

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delighted today that uh sarah van allen

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the the daughter of james van allen

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joined us um at the applied physics lab

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in the uh mission operations center um

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where she was she was right there as we

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used our 18-meter dish to uh to bring

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down that telemetry and tell us that

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everything was great so we were

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delighted that she was able to join us

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and continue um with her father's proud

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tradition of studying the radiation

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belts

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all right thank you we'll now take

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questions please state your name and

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your affiliation and to whom you're

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addressing your question marcia marsha

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done associated press for dr fox so

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based on your comments they have already

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penetrated the van allen belts by now

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they would have already they're up in

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the inner belt i believe yeah correct

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yep um and for mr fitzgerald i can't

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help but notice your fine dress this

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this morning is this for good luck or is

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this your this is my this is my good

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luck tux uh i wore this 10 years ago for

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the grace mission launch where i was the

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mission manager

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and uh that mission is 10 years and

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still on orbit uh so i'm hoping for the

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james

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much frustration was there

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enduring the past we've done seven

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minutes

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i don't know how many hours but seven

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days to get up in the air after a couple

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scrubs probably was a little frustrating

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um it was it was i can't say it was my

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most happy moments of my life but um we

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waited 11 years and i you know

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driving off the base with all that

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spectacular lightning the other day i

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was like okay they're not ready to go so

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um

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a few more days was worth it to to wait

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for this beautiful launch but uh it was

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frustrating but that's the space

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business we designed spacecraft to uh to

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be able to withstand space weather um we

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didn't really think about tropical

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storms we were more worried about those

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big geomagnetic storms so um it was

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frustrating but i am so happy that

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and so 60 days of commissioning does

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that mean it takes it will take that

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long for each instrument to have fully

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deployed or is there

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does that happen sooner

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different instruments come at different

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times

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very shortly actually later today the

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magnetometer booms um which are these on

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the from the solar panels um will deploy

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and those instruments will start taking

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data uh the these whoops these are long

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these actually are the 50 meter so

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they're 100 meter tip to tip booms and

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they deploy those very slowly because

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obviously it changes the spin rate of

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the spacecraft so it takes more than two

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weeks to get all those out and we're

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still doing puffs of thrust while we're

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doing that so we don't bring up all of

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the particle instruments until all of

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that plasma cloud is completely clear so

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that's why it takes so long we've we've

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waited a long time we want to take care

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of our instruments when they're up there

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so some will be on before others

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marcia

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yes for dr fox again um sarah van allen

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is she a scientist and she was in laurel

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maryland correct she was not here today

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she was she was here for the attempts um

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in florida uh last week um and this

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morning we were delighted that she was

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able to join us

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at the

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i am not sure

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sorry

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i'm here at kennedy space center we were

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proud to host a nasa social for the rbsp

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launch and we have some dedicated

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parties who came here last week for the

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first launch attempt and they've stuck

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it out and we're happy to invite them

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today to participate in the news

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conference and we have a question thank

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you good morning pedro vazquez delicious

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blur on twitter my question is for dr

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fox

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uh now that the now the spacecraft are

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where they're going to be for the

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foreseeable future have you have you

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decided on a name uh or will they always

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be known as spacecraft a and b

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um that is that is still under

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discussion um right now they're still

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spacecraft a and b um

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as you know i've always called them van

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and allen because they're close to my

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heart but but uh they they will they'll

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they will remain spacecraft a and b

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do we have any other questions

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all right

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seeing none we will call it a day thank

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you all very much for coming have a good

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day to keep track of the rbsp mission