>> One of the experiments that are brought
up onboard the orbital Cygnus vehicle,
the crews now unloading, is the dove experiments.
The satellite project that is going
to be demonstrating some new technology.
And we have joining us remotely Chris Boshuizen whose going
to be telling us a little bit about that experiment.
Thanks so much for joining us, Chris.
>> Hi, Randi [assumed spelling].
>> So tell us a little bit about the dove project.
What is it?
And what exactly is your involvement in it?
>> So I work at Planet Labs.
And Planet Labs is a company that's trying
to provide frequent images of the entire earth.
And so our ultimate goal is
to launch 100 very large cameras in space in CubeSats.
And provide high frequency, updated,
high resolution maps of the earth.
And so on the Cygnus we actually launched 28 of these cameras
to run a number of experiments and to test them
out in a fairly low orbit.
And get used to running large numbers of satellites in space.
>> That sounds like an ambitious project.
Can you tell us a little bit the satellites what their
capabilities are?
What they're meant to do?
>> Yeah, so each satellite is called a dove.
And we picked that name because we really wanted to, you know,
represent the amazing [inaudible] cases we think we
could have for our data.
Like, you know, just helping life and,
you know, humanity on earth.
And helping our ecosystem
and understanding what we're doing to our planet.
So the dove satellites are about 30 centimeters by 10
by 10 centimeters or about 12 by 4 by 4 inches.
So a standard 3 CubeSat.
They have almost -- I guess 80 percent
of the volume inside is a giant telescope.
And so we wanted to fit the biggest telescope we could
in a CubeSat.
And then we have all the other things that the satellite needs
like a control system, radio, storage, and reaction wheels
to move the satellite around.
>> And all of these are meant to be taking photos
of the earth for how long?
>> So the ones that we're putting
in higher orbits we actually planned to have operational
for a couple of years and provide continuous coverage.
The NanoRacks orbit that we go
into from the space station is a little lower.
And so the satellites will last somewhere between, you know,
5 to 7 months on average.
>> And I think this is not the first flock
that you've put into orbit.
How's your other flock faired?
And can you tell us anything about the results from it?
>> So great, yeah.
So we've actually launched two so far.
And so the first one was on a previous Antares flight.
And that -- almost all of those satellites in orbit two
of them have deorbited now.
And so the ones we have now are the replacements for those.
And so those were taken on to the station
and then the astronaut [inaudible] was kind of enough
to spend a lot of hours assembling together the
dispenser packs you see in these images.
And then the satellites were taken out of the hatch
and ejected into space over about a one month period.
So, you know, one of the cool things about launching
from the space station is normally when you're
on a rocket everything happens so quickly
and there's no live video.
No one ever sees the satellites.
And so we're really privileged that we're able
to get these really amazing high res pictures
of our satellites in space.
It's a rare and, you know, fascinating opportunity.
And the pictures look so good.
>> I remember seeing some of the video
of those satellites launching, and it was exciting to see.
So how does this new realm add to what you've already done?
What does it bring to the project?
>> So one of the things we're trying to do
at Planet Labs is sort of redo how system engineering is done
on spacecrafts.
So if you think about it, system engineering was more
or less sort of [inaudible] as a discipline
around the time of Apollo.
And a lot of the rules that I used to use when I was at NASA
and other places haven't been updated in a while.
So meanwhile, this entire industry of software was born
that has completely different approaches to solving problems.
So we've tried to build satellites
as if they were software.
And so what we have on this next flock are bug fixes
and key drop dates.
And so we have things we've added.
And from the lessons we've learned from the first flock,
we're able to, you know,
roll out about 200 small changes we could call bugs.
So bug fixes.
>> How exactly did you get hooked
up with the Cygnus cargo craft?
Is that been a good partnership for you?
>> Oh, it's been amazing.
The folks at Orbital have been very kind.
And one of the interesting things
about running your hardware company
like software is you want to release as late as possible
because you still might have bugs.
And so the folks at Orbital have been very receptive
to late delivery as have [inaudible] partners.
But I think the real key to this has been NanoRacks
who have provided the service for us
to get access to space in this way.
And, you know, the amount of sort of things that you have
to take into consideration when you're launching
to a manned space station is huge.
And NanoRacks do a splendid job really helping us work
through those processes.
And make sure that what we're delivering is safe
for the astronauts to handle.
So we wouldn't be in space in this way without NanoRacks.
>> We're glad you are in space.
What's the next step for you?
What happens after this?
>> So while we would [inaudible] the capsule,
Cygnus capsule [inaudible] stations [inaudible]
or yesterday and the hatch is open, I guess, as you just said.
So we can't wait to see our satellites pulled out of cargo
and starting to be assembled.
And then like on the previous flock 1 A, you know,
they'll go out in space.
And we'll probably have a small, you know,
launch viewing party here.
And I've never seen so many engineers scream
when they see a satellite actually spit
out of the space station and float off into space.
So that I guess is going to take about two weeks.
And so that gives us a little more time to prepare
for the first orbits around the earth.
So we're setting up the ground stations now around the contact
with the satellites in about two weeks.
>> All right, we'll be watching here as well.
We can't wait to see that.
That again was Chris Boshvizen the cofounder of Planet Labs --
sent up a new fleet of satellites that's going
to be launched from the space station soon.
Thanks again for joining us, Chris.
>> Thanks, Randi. ------------------------------4336a68f8104--