Behind-the-scenes - Robotics Mission Control Centre

Uploaded on February 7, 2019

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Behind-the-scenes - Robotics Mission Control Centre

2019-02-07 - Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen gives you a tour of the Robotics Mission Control Centre. (Credit: Canadian Space Agency)

Jeremy Hansen: A little behind-the-scenes look, here, at the Canadian Space Agency. I wanted to show you our mission control centre. So, let me just take you in there with me.

I didn't want to go in and disturb them, because they are actually doing robotic operations today, but from behind the glass, here, you can see, we've got our control consoles down at the bottom. In the background you can see the live feed beaming down from the International Space Station. In fact, in the top left, there, I see Thomas Pesquet. He's working away on board the Space Station. On the right we just saw a glimpse of Robonaut, and something else floating, there, and I can't review. I think Peggy Whitson was in that camera.

But here, at the Canadian Space Agency, we do a lot of our robotics control from the ground. In fact, 90% of all robotic operations are done remotely, from the ground, and about 50% of those are done here -- right here, at the Canadian Space Agency.

And the reason we do that is we want to use all of the astronaut time in space that we can for science and learning, and by doing the robotic operations from the ground we can free up a lot more astronaut time. So, this is really great.

We do a lot of very complex robotic operations from right here. In fact, everything that has to do with Dextre, our two-armed robot, is done from here as well. Really complex things, like walk-- moving up - not walking - but moving up the Canadarm to a location where we have a failed item outside the Space Station, being able to undo the bolts from a box, remove that box, store it, get a new box with components in it, and then install it. We've been doing a lot of that with our batteries, lately, on the International Space Station.

So, when you pull out your five-dollar bill you see the Canadarm, what you don't see is the enormous team of people behind the scenes that make space exploration a reality, and a lot of that team -- a good portion of that team, is right here, at the Canadian Space Agency.

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