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>> Welcome to the International Space Station Flight
Control Room.
I am here today, we were talking about some of the work
that Koichi Wakata is working on today
to install what is called the CubeSat Deployer,
so the NanoRacks.
And so here with me today is Mike Johnson.
Mike is the NanoRacks Chief Technology Officer.
Thank you for coming out to talk with us about CubeSat
and its deployer and what is going on in space right now
and some of the other [multiple speakers]
that have arrived on the Cygnus.
>> Yes, thank you.
Yeah, just to briefly explain what NanoRacks does,
we started out with flying payloads
on the inside of the Space Station.
And to date we've flown approximately 120 payloads
since 2010.
And they range in spectrum from say biological experiments
to little fluid experiments.
We've flown a lot of high school and university experiments too,
so we're, as a company we're trying
to get say the normal person into space, if you will.
And one of the things that happened last year, JAXA,
the Japanese space program gave us the opportunity
to launch a CubeSat, which is a little small satellite It's
about four inches square cube, four by four.
>> What I'd imagine.
Much smaller.
>> Yeah. They're just, they're really small satellites.
They are little cubes.
It was a standard that was devised about 2000.
We haven't flown a lot of CubeSats
yet because they're kind of hard to fly on.
>> I think we're actually getting some video.
This is from the small satellite deployment.
>> Yes, there you go.
>> This happened back in November.
>> Yes.
>> So it is very similar to that one [multiple speakers].
>> Yes, exactly.
And that was actually our second launch of CubeSats.
The first launch occurred in October of 2012.
>> Sure.
>> And so it happened at the company we were originally going
to use the Japanese J-SSOD deployer,
which is a very fine system, but we realized that, we started,
the phones started ringing off the hook.
Everybody wanted to fly CubeSats on the Space Station.
Launch them off the Space Station.
So because of this high demand we decided
to fabricate these deployers.
>> OK. And so you brought actually, this is the deployer.
So this is what Wakata is working to install now.
>> Yes. He's installing actually eight of these deployers.
To give you an idea, we have a totally
of 33 separate satellites that we flew up on Orbital 1.
In fact, we believe this will be a world record deployment
of a number of satellites in one deployment.
It will take a few days.
It will take probably a couple of weeks
to deploy all the satellites from the Space Station.
>> And so how many is he going to have?
>> Well, today he's installing eight of these deployers.
>> OK.
>> It will take two experiment air lock openings
to actually deploy all the satellites.
So the first.
>> OK. And we're getting some downlink right now.
>> Right [multiple speakers].
And what Koichi-san is installing here is the control
box for the deployers and then he later installed eight
of the deployers.
And eight is the maximum we could fit in the air lock.
>> Wow.
>> And so we're trying
to maximize the air lock utilization.
The air lock is just behind Koichi-san right now.
And so once he's loaded all of the deployers onto this pallet,
the MPAP pallet it will go out through the air lock,
and then the Japanese robotic arm will grab the pallet
that he was putting the deployers on.
>> And so this here, this end, I don't know if you can show this.
>> Sure. I can show this.
>> Is this where they're launched?
>> This is a little door.
It's like a little barn door that opens up.
We've got the CubeSats are,
there are typically two satellites that are arranged
in here, and they have a little spring on the back.
And so this little actuator in the side here goes,
connects to the control box, and from a Japanese control center
on the ground, the command to fire the satellites once the arm
and everything is in position, they press the button,
and that's what happens.
The CubeSat deploys.
>> They just kind of shoot up into space.
>> And they actually go a little bit,
the CubeSats are deployed a little bit below
and then they go in front
of the International Space Station due
to orbital mechanics.
And so they get out of the way, say of the Space Station,
so they won't collide with the Space Station.
>> Sure.
>> And they begin their operations.
So to give you an idea of what CubeSats actually do we have,
the majority of our CubeSats on this flight right now are
from a commercial company that is doing imagery work.
>> OK.
>> OK. Now the company is called Planet Labs.
And they are basically these small telescopes.
They're three cube units long, so about 300 millimeters
by 100 by 100 millimeters.
And they look down at the Earth and take pictures of the Earth.
>> Wow.
>> And eventually I think the goal is to send these images
to people like Google Earth.
So, you know, from a, I guess
from a user standpoint this is probably one
of the fastest links from space to Earth.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, you'll be able to look at your house
on Google Earth from these satellites.
>> Well, that is exciting.
>> Now, we also have a couple other really exciting payloads
on board too or CubeSats.
We have two Lithuanian satellites
and one Peruvian satellite.
These satellites will turn these countries
into space faring nations.
They are the first satellites to be deployed
in space from these nations.
We also have a couple other commercial CubeSats
that we've flown on board too.
But, as I said, it will take two air lock openings.
So we'll be going probably throughout the better part
of February deploying these satellites.
>> Well, that is very exciting.
Thank you so much for coming.
We're just about out of time here,
but real quick can you tell me about when are these
to be deployed, the ones that he is installing now?
>> The first set would be February 6 I believe we're going
to start the deployments.
And then the second set hasn't scheduled yet,
but it will probably be a couple weeks later.
>> OK.
>> So just a quick shout out too,
I have to say this is all Texas built.
>> Texas built.
>> For our Texans in the room here.
>> Sure.
>> But Quad-M, a local manufacturer just outside
of Austin, McDade, Texas made most of this,
and we're just really happy
to put the Texas folks to work on this.
>> Very good.
Well, we are all proud of Texas here in Texas.
>> Thank you.
>> Thanks so much for coming out again.
>> I appreciate it.
>> This is all very exciting and fascinating to hear about,
and we'll be watching.
>> Thank you so much.
>> Thank you.
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