WEBVTT

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Bedtime Astronomy. Explore the wonders of the cosmos

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<v Speaker 1>with our soothing Bedtime Astronomie podcast. Each episode offers a

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<v Speaker 1>gentle journey through the stars, planets, and beyond, perfect for

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<v Speaker 1>unwinding after a long day. Let's travel through the mysteries

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<v Speaker 1>of the universe as you drift off into a peaceful

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<v Speaker 1>slumber under.

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<v Speaker 2>The night sky. Imagine just for a second that you

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<v Speaker 2>are looking out your window at this towering thunderstorm right

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<v Speaker 2>the sky. Is that bruised purple color, you know, the

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<v Speaker 2>lightning is just strobing, and you deep down it's about

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<v Speaker 2>to drop a completely catastrophic flash flood right on your city.

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<v Speaker 3>It's a terrifying scenario, Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>It is. But hey, so what if I told you

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<v Speaker 2>that to predict exactly when that specific storm will turn deadly,

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<v Speaker 2>you you actually shouldn't be looking at the rain falling

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<v Speaker 2>out of the bottom exactly, And you shouldn't be looking

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<v Speaker 2>at those massive, you know, anvilsh shaped clouds at the

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<v Speaker 2>very top either. No, you really shouldn't, right, because to

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<v Speaker 2>truly understand the destructive power of that storm, you actually

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<v Speaker 2>need to look directly into this invitable vertical elevator shaft

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<v Speaker 2>in the exact middle of.

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<v Speaker 3>It, which is frankly the ultimate blind spot in modern

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<v Speaker 3>meteorology right now. I mean, we see the aftermath and

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<v Speaker 3>we see the exhaust, but the engine itself has been

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<v Speaker 3>essentially hidden from view for decades.

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<v Speaker 2>And that is exactly what we are unpacking today because

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<v Speaker 2>we are looking at this profound, honestly almost unsettling contradiction

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<v Speaker 2>in how our entire planet operates. It really is a paradox, right,

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<v Speaker 2>because on one hand, you have the absolute most fundamental

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<v Speaker 2>thing you need to survive, which is water. Yeah, more

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<v Speaker 2>than half of the entire world's life supporting fresh water.

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<v Speaker 2>I mean the water that fills the reservoirs you drink from,

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<v Speaker 2>the water that grows the food on your table, the

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<v Speaker 2>system that essentially keeps human civilization humming. It all comes

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<v Speaker 2>from tropical convective storms.

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<v Speaker 3>It's basically the delivery mechanism for life on Earth exactly.

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<v Speaker 3>I mean, without that massive global transport of moisture, the

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<v Speaker 3>planet as we know it simply doesn't function. We would

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<v Speaker 3>be in serious trouble.

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<v Speaker 2>But then you have the dark side of that exact

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<v Speaker 2>same coin, Yeah, the destruction, right, because these storms, these

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<v Speaker 2>literal engines of life are also responsible for some of

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<v Speaker 2>the most extreme, terrifying, and just life threatening weather events

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<v Speaker 2>on Earth because devastating floods, they generate hail that destroys

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<v Speaker 2>entire crops and minutes, they spawn tornadoes, they wipe out power.

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<v Speaker 3>Grizz It's a massive, massive paradox.

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<v Speaker 2>It is how can something so incredibly vital to your

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<v Speaker 2>everyday survival also be so inherently destructive?

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<v Speaker 3>And honestly, that duality is exactly why atmospheric scientists have

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<v Speaker 3>been so relentlessly obsessed with them for so long. Right,

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<v Speaker 3>we are completely reliant on this massive system that we

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<v Speaker 3>just don't fully understand, and well more importantly, it's a

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<v Speaker 3>system we can't perfectly predict.

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<v Speaker 2>Which is the scary part from most people, right exactly.

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<v Speaker 3>I mean, we know they bring the water, we know

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<v Speaker 3>they bring the danger, But the precise actual physical mechanics

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<v Speaker 3>of how a storm decides in real time to be

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<v Speaker 3>just a gentle afternoon rain maker versus a catastrophic, multi

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<v Speaker 3>billion dollar event. Yeah, that exact tipping point has just

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<v Speaker 3>been completely obscured.

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<v Speaker 2>From us, which is why I am so so fascinated

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<v Speaker 2>by this upcoming mission from NASA. It's slated for twenty

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<v Speaker 2>twenty seven, and it's called INCUS.

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<v Speaker 3>Ah Yes, Investigation of Convective.

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<v Speaker 2>Updrafts right in CUS. And from what I understand, it

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<v Speaker 2>is this incredibly complex, highly synchronized orbital ballet designed to

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<v Speaker 2>finally crack open that mysterious vertical engine of these tropical

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<v Speaker 2>convective storms.

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<v Speaker 3>It is, it really is.

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<v Speaker 2>But I'll be honest, the deeper I look into this,

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<v Speaker 2>the more questions I have about how they are actually

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<v Speaker 2>pulling this off logistically.

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<v Speaker 3>I don't blame you. It is arguably one of the

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<v Speaker 3>most ambitious and well elegantly designed pieces of atmospheric science

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<v Speaker 3>ever attempted.

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<v Speaker 2>Wow.

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<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it represents a fundamental ground up shift in how

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<v Speaker 3>we actually look at the Earth's atmosphere.

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<v Speaker 2>And for you listening right now, I want to make

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<v Speaker 2>it super clear that this isn't just some you know,

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<v Speaker 2>abstract astrophysics or a high level meteorology lessons not all.

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<v Speaker 2>This is about the immediate future of how humanity is

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<v Speaker 2>going to physically protected cities. This is about how your

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<v Speaker 2>local government is going to manage your drinking water, how

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<v Speaker 2>your homeowner's insurance is going to be calculated. Even yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>that's a huge factor, and you know exactly how much

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<v Speaker 2>warning you get on your phone before a flash flood

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<v Speaker 2>literally cuts off your street. It is that direct to

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<v Speaker 2>your everyday life.

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<v Speaker 3>It really impacts everyone.

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<v Speaker 2>So, okay, the core objective of this I NCUS mission

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<v Speaker 2>is to measure something called convective.

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<v Speaker 3>Mass flux, right, convective mass flux, and I.

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<v Speaker 2>Understand those words individually, sure, yeah, but what does that

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<v Speaker 2>actually mean in the context of a giant thunderstorm.

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<v Speaker 3>Well, to really understand convective mass flux, we have to

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<v Speaker 3>kind of fundament the only change our perspective on what

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<v Speaker 3>a storm actually is.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, I'm listening.

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<v Speaker 3>Think about how you usually interact with the weather, Like

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<v Speaker 3>when you stand outside during a thunderstorm, or when you

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<v Speaker 3>just pull up a weather app on your phone. You

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<v Speaker 3>are experiencing the weather horizontally.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh right, like on a map.

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<v Speaker 3>Exactly. You look at the radar map and you see

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<v Speaker 3>this green or red blob just kind of creeping from

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<v Speaker 3>west to east across the screen.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, exactly.

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<v Speaker 3>Or you step outside and the rain is falling down

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<v Speaker 3>on your head. We treat storms like there're these flat,

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<v Speaker 3>horizontal phenomena. But a storm isn't a flat circle on

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<v Speaker 3>a map. It is a towering, three dimensional, incredibly violent

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<v Speaker 3>vertical engine.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, So the convection part, that's the vertical movement. It's

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<v Speaker 2>basically the hot air rising, right, it is.

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<v Speaker 3>But it is so much more violent and complex than

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<v Speaker 3>just you know, hot air rising in a room. Okay,

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<v Speaker 3>Convection at its most basic thermodynamic level is the sudden,

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<v Speaker 3>intense lifting of massive amounts of air and water. Let's

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<v Speaker 3>break down the actual physics of it. Do so, the

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<v Speaker 3>sun heats the surface of the Earth, the air right

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<v Speaker 3>above the ground gets hot, and because hot air is

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<v Speaker 3>less dense than cold air, it becomes buoyant. It wants

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<v Speaker 3>to rise, kind of like a hot air balloon.

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<v Speaker 2>Right, makes sense.

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<v Speaker 3>Now, if that air is holding a lot of evaporated water,

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<v Speaker 3>so humidity, it carries all that invisible water vapor up

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<v Speaker 3>with it as.

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<v Speaker 2>It rises, right, And as you go higher up in

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<v Speaker 2>the atmosphere, it gets.

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<v Speaker 3>Colder exactly, And this is where the engine really ignites.

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<v Speaker 3>As that warm, moist air rises up into the colder

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<v Speaker 3>upper atmosphere, the atmosphere pressure drops, the air expands, and

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<v Speaker 3>it cools down, Okay, falling so far, and when it

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<v Speaker 3>cools that invisible water vapor can no longer stay a gas.

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<v Speaker 3>It condenses back into liquid water droplets, and this is

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<v Speaker 3>actually what forms cloud right. Okay, But and this is

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<v Speaker 3>the absolutely crucial piece of the puzzle here. When water

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<v Speaker 3>changes state from a gas back into a liquid, it

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<v Speaker 3>releases something called latent heat.

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<v Speaker 2>Wait, latent heat? What is that? Like heat that was

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<v Speaker 2>somehow trapped inside the water?

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<v Speaker 3>Yes, exactly. Think about out boiling a pot of water

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<v Speaker 3>on your stove. Okay, you have to pump a lot

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<v Speaker 3>of energy, the heat from your burner into the liquid

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<v Speaker 3>water to physically force it to turn into a gas

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<v Speaker 3>into steam. That energy doesn't just disappear, It is physically

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<v Speaker 3>stored in the vapor itself. So later on, when that

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<v Speaker 3>vapor rises high into the sky and condenses back into

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<v Speaker 3>a liquid droplet, it has to release all that stored

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<v Speaker 3>energy back into the surrounding air.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh wow, wait, so the actual act of condensation heats

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<v Speaker 2>up the air around it precisely.

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<v Speaker 3>And what happens when air gets.

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<v Speaker 2>Heated It gets more buoyant, It rises, it becomes.

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<v Speaker 3>Even more buoyant, it rises even faster. So the very

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<v Speaker 3>act of the cloud forming releases heat, which acts like

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<v Speaker 3>an afterburner on a jet engine, causing the air to

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<v Speaker 3>violently accelerate upward. That is wild, and then it pulls

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<v Speaker 3>even more moist air up from the bottom to replace it,

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<v Speaker 3>which then condenses, releasing more heat, causing more acceleration. It

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<v Speaker 3>is essentially a runaway thermodynamic train.

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<v Speaker 2>That makes so much sense when you explain it that. So,

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<v Speaker 2>convective mass flux is basically measuring that runaway train.

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<v Speaker 3>Yes, exactly. Convective mass flux is the measurement of that

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<v Speaker 3>sheer volume of mass. We're talking billions of pounds of

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<v Speaker 3>air and liquid water moving upward through a specific area

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<v Speaker 3>over a specific amount of time. Wow, it is the

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<v Speaker 3>raw vertical horse power of the storm.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, I want to try an analogy here just to

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<v Speaker 2>see if I'm tracking this correctly.

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<v Speaker 3>Go for it.

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<v Speaker 2>Think of a thunderstorm like an elevator and a massive

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<v Speaker 2>towering skyscraper. Most of the time, our current weather technology

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<v Speaker 2>is basically just standing down in the ground floor lobby,

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<v Speaker 2>like we have our rain gages in our ground radar,

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<v Speaker 2>and we can basically only see when the elevator doors

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<v Speaker 2>open and the rain just spills out into the lobby.

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<v Speaker 3>Right, That's exactly how we do it now.

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<v Speaker 2>Or we have these traditional weather satellites that act almost

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<v Speaker 2>like a helicopter hovering over the roof of the skyscraper. Yes,

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<v Speaker 2>they look down and take pictures of the top of

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<v Speaker 2>the elevator shaft, you know, the sprawling flat anvil clouds

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<v Speaker 2>at the very top of the storm. But we don't

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<v Speaker 2>know what's happening in the middle exactly.

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<v Speaker 3>It's a huge gap.

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<v Speaker 2>So I Incus is designed to somehow look directly through

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<v Speaker 2>the concrete walls of the building straight into the dark

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<v Speaker 2>elevator shaft to see exactly how fast that elevator car

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<v Speaker 2>full of water is rocketing upward.

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<v Speaker 3>That is a brilliant way to visualize it.

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<v Speaker 2>I really like that.

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<v Speaker 3>Oh good, because we have been staring at the lobby

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<v Speaker 3>in the roof for decades making educated guesses about the

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<v Speaker 3>middle part. But the action the thermodynamic engine that actually

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<v Speaker 3>dictates how violent that storm will be when it finally

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<v Speaker 3>hits your neighborhood, that is happening entirely inside the shaft

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<v Speaker 3>right The speed of that elevator and the sheer mass

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<v Speaker 3>of water it's carrying. That convective mass flex we just

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<v Speaker 3>talked about is the absolute key to unlocking the causality

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<v Speaker 3>of these storms.

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<v Speaker 2>But so, how does knowing the speed of the elevator

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<v Speaker 2>actually change our understanding of the danger?

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<v Speaker 3>Well, because the vertical velocity dictates the severity of the fallout. Okay,

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<v Speaker 3>if the elevator is moving slowly, say ten or fifteen

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<v Speaker 3>miles per hour straight up, you might get a standard

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<v Speaker 3>kind of dreary afternoon shower. The water goes up, it condenses,

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<v Speaker 3>and it falls back down.

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<v Speaker 2>Gently, right, just regular rain.

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<v Speaker 3>But if that elevator is rocketing upward at incredible speeds

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<v Speaker 3>and I mean sometimes exceeding one hundred miles power straight up,

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<v Speaker 3>it pulls millions of gallons of water and immense energy

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<v Speaker 3>deep into the freezing upper atmosphere.

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<v Speaker 2>One hundred miles an hour straight up. That's insane.

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<v Speaker 3>It is violently fast, and that violent updraft actually suspends

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<v Speaker 3>the water droplets high up in the freezing air, allowing

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<v Speaker 3>them to accumulate layers and layers of ice, which is

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<v Speaker 3>exactly how you get massive destructive hails.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh so the hail is literally just trapped in the elevator,

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<v Speaker 2>getting colder and colder.

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<v Speaker 3>Precisely, and that explosive upward force is what stretches the

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<v Speaker 3>atmosphere and creates the wind shear that spawns tornadoes, It

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<v Speaker 3>creates torrential downpours and lethal microbursts.

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<v Speaker 2>So if we can actually measure the speed and the

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<v Speaker 2>mass inside that elevator shaft, we get completely different, highly

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<v Speaker 2>active understanding of what the storm is actually capable of

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<v Speaker 2>doing exactly.

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<v Speaker 3>But it's not just the movement itself. ACUS isn't just

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<v Speaker 3>a speedometer for clouds, you know. It is designed to

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<v Speaker 3>correlate that vertical motion with a massive suite of other

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<v Speaker 3>environmental factors. While it's measuring the updraft, the mission is

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<v Speaker 3>simultaneously tracking the surrounding air temperature, the relative humidity, the

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<v Speaker 3>atmospheric pressure, the wind speed, and the wind direction at

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<v Speaker 3>all these different altitudes.

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<v Speaker 2>But why does it need all that extra data? I mean,

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<v Speaker 2>if the goal is to measure the updraft, isn't just

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<v Speaker 2>knowing the speed and the mass of the water enough

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<v Speaker 2>to tell us if a storm is dangerous?

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<v Speaker 3>Well, knowing the speed of the elevator tells you what

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<v Speaker 3>is happening right now, But knowing the condition of the cables,

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<v Speaker 3>the voltage of the power supply, and the friction in

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<v Speaker 3>the shaft tells you why it's moving. That fast and

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<v Speaker 3>more importantly, what it's going to do next.

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<v Speaker 2>Uh, okay, the context exactly.

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<v Speaker 3>Let's look at windshar. For example. Windshear is the change

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<v Speaker 3>in wind speed and direction at different altitudes.

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<v Speaker 2>Right the wind blowing east down at the surface, but

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<v Speaker 2>blowing north up at thirty thousand feet Exactly.

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<v Speaker 3>If you have a powerful vertical updraft, but you have

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<v Speaker 3>extreme wind shear ripping across the top of it, that

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<v Speaker 3>shear might physically chop the top off the updraft, kind

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<v Speaker 3>of choking the storm and killing it before it ever

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<v Speaker 3>becomes severe.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh wow, I didn't think about.

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<v Speaker 3>That, right, Or under slightly different thermodynamic conditions, that exact

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<v Speaker 3>same wind shear might start twisting the updraft, turning that

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<v Speaker 3>vertical column of air into a rotating mesocyclone. And a

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<v Speaker 3>mesocyclone is it's the parent engine of a super self

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<v Speaker 3>thunderstorm and eventually a tornado.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh got it.

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<v Speaker 3>So by understanding how the humidity and temperature are fueling

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<v Speaker 3>the lift and how the atmospheric winds are interacting with

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<v Speaker 3>that vertical column, we move from just observing a storm

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<v Speaker 3>to actually understanding the exact mechanical levers controlling it.

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<v Speaker 2>That feels like a monumentally forward honestly, like, we're going

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<v Speaker 2>from just watching a storm happen on a screen to

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<v Speaker 2>fundamentally understanding the exact physics that make it happen in

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<v Speaker 2>real time.

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<v Speaker 3>It completely shifts the entire paradigm of global storm forecasting.

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<v Speaker 3>How so well, right now, so much of our severe

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<v Speaker 3>weather tracking is heavily reactive. A green blob appears on

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<v Speaker 3>a radar screen. Over the next hour, it turns yellow,

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<v Speaker 3>then dark red. An algorithm or a highly trained meteorologist

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<v Speaker 3>interprets that color change, looks at the historical data, and

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<v Speaker 3>issues a flash flood warning for your county.

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<v Speaker 2>But at that point, the storm is already dumbing rain. Right,

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<v Speaker 2>You're reacting to something that is already mature.

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<v Speaker 3>Exactly, we are reacting to the exhaust But with the

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<v Speaker 3>data i Incus will provide, meteorologists will actually be able

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<v Speaker 3>to map the raw underlying mechanics of storm formation before

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<v Speaker 3>the heavy rain even starts falling. Wow, we are moving

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<v Speaker 3>toward predictive models that are based on the fundamental physics

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<v Speaker 3>of the updraft itself.

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<v Speaker 2>So instead of a weather anchor saying, hey, there's a

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<v Speaker 2>really bad storm currently over the next town, it's headed

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<v Speaker 2>your way. The models could theoretically say, hey, the thermodynamic

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<v Speaker 2>conditions and the vertical mass flux of this cloud are

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<v Speaker 2>aligning right now to create a severe destructive storm that

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<v Speaker 2>will drop exactly three inches of rain on your neighborhood

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<v Speaker 2>in exactly thirty four minutes.

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<v Speaker 3>Precisely, we move from probabilities to mechanics, and the implications

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<v Speaker 3>for that across human society are just staggering.

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<v Speaker 2>I can imagine think about.

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<v Speaker 3>The decision makers who run our actual infrastructure. If you

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<v Speaker 3>manage a massive hydroelectric dam or a reservoir system for

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<v Speaker 3>a major city, you don't just need to know that

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<v Speaker 3>it's going to rain today. You need to know exactly

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<v Speaker 3>how millions of gallons of water are going to be

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<v Speaker 3>dumped into your specific watershed and how.

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<v Speaker 2>Fast right because if you guess wrong, the dam overflows

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<v Speaker 2>and causes a flood, or you release way too much

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<v Speaker 2>water too early and risk a drought later in the year.

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<v Speaker 3>Exactly, the stakes are huge. With predictive vertical modeling, you

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<v Speaker 3>can proactively manage freshwater supplies with incredible precision. You can

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<v Speaker 3>mitigate billions of dollars in property damage. You can cord

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<v Speaker 3>emergency responses evacuate specific floodplanes and even route air traffic

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<v Speaker 3>with a lead time and an accuracy that is just

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<v Speaker 3>currently impossible.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, conceptually I am completely sold. The value of measuring

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<v Speaker 2>this vertical elevator is undeniable good. But as we get

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<v Speaker 2>into the actual how, I start running into major logical roadblocks. Okay,

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<v Speaker 2>lay them on me, because measuring something that is moving,

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<v Speaker 2>that violently spanning miles of atmosphere and constantly changing second

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<v Speaker 2>by second, that poses a massive logistical problem. It does

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<v Speaker 2>like if you take a single static photograph of an explosion,

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<v Speaker 2>you don't really understand the physics of it. To measure

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<v Speaker 2>a vertical engine that is constantly accelerating and collapsing, a

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<v Speaker 2>single snapshot isn't enough. You have to watch it evolve

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<v Speaker 2>over time. That's entirely correct, which leads us to the

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<v Speaker 2>actual physical orbital design of the Incus mission itself. And

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<v Speaker 2>this is where my mind really starts to bend.

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<v Speaker 3>The orbital mechanics required to pull this off are truly

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<v Speaker 3>something to behold. It is a absolute masterpiece of precision engineering.

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<v Speaker 2>So I Incus is not just one big satellite, which

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<v Speaker 2>is what we usually expect from NASA, right, It is

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<v Speaker 2>a synchronized fleet. Specifically, it uses three small sat at

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<v Speaker 2>those small satellites flying in this incredibly tight coordinated formation

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<v Speaker 2>in low Earth orbit, Yes, three of them. And the

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<v Speaker 2>spacing between these three satellites is what I just do

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<v Speaker 2>not understand. The first and second satellites are separated by

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<v Speaker 2>exactly thirty seconds of flight time, correct, and then the

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<v Speaker 2>second and third satellites are separated by ninety.

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<v Speaker 3>Seconds, making a total continuous viewing window of exactly one

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<v Speaker 3>hundred and twenty seconds two minutes.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay, I have to push back here, yeah, because the

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<v Speaker 2>math and the logic feel super contradictory. First, why use

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<v Speaker 2>three small satellites instead of just building one massive, super

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<v Speaker 2>powerful flagship observatory. I mean, NASA is famous for these

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<v Speaker 2>giant school bus side multi billion dollar satellites with massive

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<v Speaker 2>power grids. Why chop the mission up into three tiny pieces?

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<v Speaker 3>That's a very question.

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<v Speaker 2>And more importantly, if you are doing that, why this

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<v Speaker 2>incredibly specific, completely asymmetrical timing thirty seconds and then a

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<v Speaker 2>ninety second gap That seems so strangely specific.

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<v Speaker 3>It is very specific.

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<v Speaker 2>Yes, and beyond that, these satellites are orbiting at what

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<v Speaker 2>seventeen thousand miles per hour.

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<v Speaker 3>Roughly seventeen thousand, five hundred miles per.

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<v Speaker 2>Are you right, and a thunderstorm has winds of maybe

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<v Speaker 2>fifty to one hundred miles per hour. So in the

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<v Speaker 2>one hundred and twenty seconds between the first satellite and

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<v Speaker 2>the third satellite passing over, the storm has physically moved

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<v Speaker 2>miles away from its original location, and the Earth itself

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<v Speaker 2>is rotating underneath them. How are they even looking at

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<v Speaker 2>the same thing?

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<v Speaker 3>Okay, these are excellent questions, and they honestly hit at

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<v Speaker 3>the very heart of why this mission took so much

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<v Speaker 3>engineering to design. Let's tackle the why three instead of

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<v Speaker 3>one first. Okay, As you pointed out, a thunderstorm is

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<v Speaker 3>a violently dynamic, constantly evolving system. If you have a

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<v Speaker 3>single massive flagship satellite orbiting the Earth at seventeen thousand,

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<v Speaker 3>five hundred miles per hour, it passes over a storm

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<v Speaker 3>in a fraction of an instant.

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<v Speaker 2>Right, it's flying by super fast.

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<v Speaker 3>It can take one incredibly detailed, very high resolution snapshot.

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<v Speaker 3>But tropical convective storms evolve in a matter of seconds.

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<v Speaker 2>Right, The updraft can suddenly surge or just collapse completely.

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<v Speaker 3>Exactly in the time it takes you to walk to

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<v Speaker 3>your kitchen and pour a cup of coffee. An updraft

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<v Speaker 3>can explode in intensity from a gentle lift to a

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<v Speaker 3>severe destructive force. So a single snapshot from a massive

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<v Speaker 3>satellite gives you the state of the storm at time zero,

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<v Speaker 3>but it gives you no rate of change. It gives

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<v Speaker 3>you no acceleration. You don't know if the storm is growing, dying,

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<v Speaker 3>or just holding study.

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<v Speaker 2>It's literally just a single frame of a movie. You

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<v Speaker 2>can't tell the plot precisely.

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00:18:45.759 --> 00:18:49.559
<v Speaker 3>To really understand a dynamic system, you need multiple cameras

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<v Speaker 3>passing by sequentially. You need an orbital stop motion animation,

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<v Speaker 3>and that dictates the need for a fleet and it

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<v Speaker 3>specifically dictates that asymmetrical timing.

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<v Speaker 2>So the one hundred and twenty seconds is on purpose.

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<v Speaker 1>Yes, the one.

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<v Speaker 3>Hundred and twenty second total window is the precise thermo

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<v Speaker 3>dynamic Goldilocks zone for witnessing a convective updraft.

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<v Speaker 2>Evolve, Let me try a different analogy for this timing,

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00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:15.839
<v Speaker 2>because the thirty to ninety second gaps so so specific.

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<v Speaker 2>Go ahead, think about automotive engineers trying to analyze a

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<v Speaker 2>high speed car crash.

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<v Speaker 3>Okay, interesting, if.

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00:19:21.440 --> 00:19:23.920
<v Speaker 2>They just have two pictures, like a picture of the

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<v Speaker 2>prescine car before the crash and then a picture of

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00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:29.440
<v Speaker 2>the mangled wreck ten minutes later. They have absolutely no

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00:19:29.599 --> 00:19:31.440
<v Speaker 2>idea about the physics.

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00:19:31.119 --> 00:19:32.720
<v Speaker 3>Of the impact, right, they just see the before and

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00:19:32.799 --> 00:19:34.319
<v Speaker 3>after exactly.

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00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:36.920
<v Speaker 2>To understand the safety systems, they need high speed frames

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00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:40.000
<v Speaker 2>at incredibly specific intervals right when the crash happens.

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00:19:40.079 --> 00:19:42.160
<v Speaker 3>That is a highly accurate comparison.

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00:19:42.160 --> 00:19:44.279
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So the first satellite is like the camera capturing

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00:19:44.319 --> 00:19:46.960
<v Speaker 2>the baseline. It takes a reading of the storm at

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00:19:46.960 --> 00:19:49.039
<v Speaker 2>times zero right before the crash.

403
00:19:49.240 --> 00:19:53.319
<v Speaker 3>Yes, it maps the vertical precipitation profile and the environmental

404
00:19:53.319 --> 00:19:55.240
<v Speaker 3>state right as the sequence begins.

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00:19:55.400 --> 00:19:59.000
<v Speaker 2>Then exactly thirty seconds later, the second satellite flies over.

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00:19:59.359 --> 00:20:01.240
<v Speaker 2>And the reason it's thirty seconds is because in a

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00:20:01.279 --> 00:20:04.400
<v Speaker 2>car crash you need a photo roughly one second after

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00:20:04.480 --> 00:20:07.720
<v Speaker 2>impact to see the crumple zone fail, because the initial

409
00:20:07.960 --> 00:20:12.039
<v Speaker 2>explosive transfer of energy happens basically instantly. Yeah, is that

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00:20:12.079 --> 00:20:14.480
<v Speaker 2>what happens in a storm? Does it explode instantly?

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00:20:14.640 --> 00:20:16.920
<v Speaker 3>That is exactly the physics at play here. Remember that

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<v Speaker 3>latent heat we talked about.

413
00:20:18.119 --> 00:20:20.119
<v Speaker 2>Earlier, Oh right, the boiling water analogy.

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00:20:20.279 --> 00:20:24.039
<v Speaker 3>Yes, when that water vapor condenses and releases heat. The

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00:20:24.079 --> 00:20:27.559
<v Speaker 3>resulting acceleration of the updraft isn't some slow and steady

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00:20:27.559 --> 00:20:31.119
<v Speaker 3>build up. It is an explosive exponential surge.

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00:20:31.200 --> 00:20:31.480
<v Speaker 2>Wow.

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00:20:31.559 --> 00:20:36.359
<v Speaker 3>Okay, that initial violent vertical velocity happens incredibly fast. So

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00:20:36.400 --> 00:20:39.440
<v Speaker 3>that specific thirty second window between the first and second

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00:20:39.480 --> 00:20:42.759
<v Speaker 3>satellite is designed to catch the immediate rapid changes in

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00:20:42.799 --> 00:20:45.519
<v Speaker 3>the vertical speed of the air and water. It tells

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00:20:45.559 --> 00:20:48.279
<v Speaker 3>us the raw acceleration of the elevator right as the

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00:20:48.319 --> 00:20:49.200
<v Speaker 3>engine redlines.

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<v Speaker 2>So Satellite one gives us the starting speed. Satellite two

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00:20:52.799 --> 00:20:56.839
<v Speaker 2>thirty seconds later gives us the massive acceleration. It shows

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00:20:56.880 --> 00:20:59.200
<v Speaker 2>us the crumple zone failing in real time.

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00:20:59.359 --> 00:21:03.319
<v Speaker 3>Yes, and then the third satellite arrives ninety seconds after

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00:21:03.359 --> 00:21:06.039
<v Speaker 3>the second one, which makes it two full minutes after

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00:21:06.079 --> 00:21:09.119
<v Speaker 3>the first satellite. Okay, this captures the longer term evolution

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00:21:09.200 --> 00:21:13.519
<v Speaker 3>of the updraft. Has that violent thirty second surge sustained itself?

431
00:21:13.920 --> 00:21:16.480
<v Speaker 3>Has the updraft collapsed under the sheer weight of the

432
00:21:16.640 --> 00:21:19.599
<v Speaker 3>millions of gallons of water it just lifted? Or is

433
00:21:19.640 --> 00:21:22.200
<v Speaker 3>that rising air now hitting the top of the troposphere

434
00:21:22.279 --> 00:21:25.559
<v Speaker 3>and spreading out horizontally to form that massive anvil cloud?

435
00:21:25.720 --> 00:21:28.039
<v Speaker 2>So the ninety second gap is like looking at the

436
00:21:28.079 --> 00:21:31.000
<v Speaker 2>car crash ten seconds later to see where the debris

437
00:21:31.119 --> 00:21:32.640
<v Speaker 2>actually landed exactly.

438
00:21:32.759 --> 00:21:36.200
<v Speaker 3>It is a perfectly choreographed sequence designed specifically around the

439
00:21:36.200 --> 00:21:40.319
<v Speaker 3>physical timeline of atmospheric thermodynamics. You get the baseline state,

440
00:21:40.400 --> 00:21:44.160
<v Speaker 3>the immediate explosive acceleration, and the sustained evolution and fallout,

441
00:21:44.480 --> 00:21:46.799
<v Speaker 3>all mapped perfectly in a one hundred and twenty second

442
00:21:46.799 --> 00:21:48.279
<v Speaker 3>stop motion orbital dance.

443
00:21:48.559 --> 00:21:51.000
<v Speaker 2>That is amazing, But what about the movement? Do you

444
00:21:51.039 --> 00:21:54.119
<v Speaker 2>have three satellites screaming across the sky at seventeen thousand

445
00:21:54.160 --> 00:21:56.519
<v Speaker 2>miles per hour and the storm moving across the ground,

446
00:21:56.880 --> 00:21:59.960
<v Speaker 2>how do they physically look at the exact same spot

447
00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:01.440
<v Speaker 2>one hundred and twenty seconds later.

448
00:22:01.680 --> 00:22:03.880
<v Speaker 3>It comes down to the alignment of the orbital plane

449
00:22:03.920 --> 00:22:05.960
<v Speaker 3>and the footprint of the radar beam itself.

450
00:22:06.039 --> 00:22:07.480
<v Speaker 2>Okay, how so well, the.

451
00:22:07.440 --> 00:22:10.160
<v Speaker 3>Three satellites are flying in the exact same orbital track

452
00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:12.680
<v Speaker 3>in what we call a string of pearls formation, one

453
00:22:12.759 --> 00:22:15.559
<v Speaker 3>right behind the other, and the radar beam they project

454
00:22:15.559 --> 00:22:18.279
<v Speaker 3>down to the Earth isn't like a tiny laser pointer,

455
00:22:18.440 --> 00:22:21.720
<v Speaker 3>it's a much wider footprint. Ay, So, while the Earth

456
00:22:21.759 --> 00:22:25.079
<v Speaker 3>does rotate slightly and the storm does move a fraction

457
00:22:25.160 --> 00:22:27.960
<v Speaker 3>of a mile during those one hundred twenty seconds. The

458
00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:30.759
<v Speaker 3>swath of the radar beam is wide enough that the

459
00:22:30.960 --> 00:22:33.640
<v Speaker 3>entire core of the updraft remains within the field of

460
00:22:33.720 --> 00:22:35.160
<v Speaker 3>view for all three passes.

461
00:22:35.279 --> 00:22:37.400
<v Speaker 2>Okay, that makes a lot more sense, right.

462
00:22:37.279 --> 00:22:40.200
<v Speaker 3>And then complex algorithms on the ground align the three

463
00:22:40.240 --> 00:22:44.000
<v Speaker 3>images perfectly based on the GPS coordinates, creating a totally

464
00:22:44.119 --> 00:22:45.799
<v Speaker 3>seamless time lapse.

465
00:22:45.759 --> 00:22:48.519
<v Speaker 2>That is unbelievable. But to pull off a one hundred

466
00:22:48.519 --> 00:22:52.039
<v Speaker 2>and twenty second high speed vertical stop motion animation from

467
00:22:52.079 --> 00:22:55.519
<v Speaker 2>the literal vacuum of space, these satellites need some highly

468
00:22:55.599 --> 00:22:56.480
<v Speaker 2>specialized eyes.

469
00:22:56.720 --> 00:22:57.680
<v Speaker 3>They absolutely do.

470
00:22:57.880 --> 00:23:00.839
<v Speaker 2>You can't just slap a commercial digital care onto a

471
00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:03.319
<v Speaker 2>metal box and shoot it into orbit to look inside

472
00:23:03.359 --> 00:23:06.680
<v Speaker 2>a cloud, which brings us to the actual anatogy of

473
00:23:06.680 --> 00:23:10.359
<v Speaker 2>these small SATs and looking at how they are built.

474
00:23:10.440 --> 00:23:14.000
<v Speaker 2>The hardware packed into these things is an absolute master

475
00:23:14.079 --> 00:23:17.480
<v Speaker 2>class in miniaturization and well collaboration.

476
00:23:17.759 --> 00:23:21.240
<v Speaker 3>The sheer number of moving parts, both physically on the

477
00:23:21.279 --> 00:23:24.240
<v Speaker 3>spacecraft and organizationally across the entire country is.

478
00:23:24.200 --> 00:23:26.880
<v Speaker 2>Staggering, right, Because this isn't just one lab building everything

479
00:23:26.880 --> 00:23:30.319
<v Speaker 2>in a basement somewhere we have NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

480
00:23:30.519 --> 00:23:34.160
<v Speaker 2>JPL out in southern California, who built the actual spaceborne radar.

481
00:23:34.319 --> 00:23:35.720
<v Speaker 3>Yes, the masters of radar.

482
00:23:35.759 --> 00:23:38.880
<v Speaker 2>We have a commercial company called ten Dig based in Lousville, Colorado,

483
00:23:39.039 --> 00:23:43.440
<v Speaker 2>who built these deployable mesh radar reflectors. Then we have

484
00:23:43.480 --> 00:23:47.240
<v Speaker 2>the middle satellite, which uniquely carries a microwave radiometer, also

485
00:23:47.279 --> 00:23:50.680
<v Speaker 2>built by JPL. And all of this delicate, world class

486
00:23:50.720 --> 00:23:55.440
<v Speaker 2>instrumentation is packed into the actual spacecraft buses, the metal

487
00:23:55.480 --> 00:23:58.440
<v Speaker 2>bodies of the satellites, which were built by Blue Canyon

488
00:23:58.480 --> 00:24:00.440
<v Speaker 2>Technologies in Lafayette, Colorado.

489
00:24:01.559 --> 00:24:04.920
<v Speaker 3>The integration of all these disparate components into a unified

490
00:24:05.079 --> 00:24:08.799
<v Speaker 3>functioning fleet is an engineering marvel. I mean it requires

491
00:24:08.839 --> 00:24:11.039
<v Speaker 3>tolerances measured in fractions of a millimeter.

492
00:24:11.240 --> 00:24:14.839
<v Speaker 2>Let's focus on those tolerances because the phrase deployable mesh

493
00:24:14.920 --> 00:24:17.759
<v Speaker 2>radar reflector sounds completely wild to me.

494
00:24:17.920 --> 00:24:19.480
<v Speaker 3>It's an incredible piece of tech.

495
00:24:19.599 --> 00:24:21.039
<v Speaker 2>I look at that and I liken it to a

496
00:24:21.079 --> 00:24:23.920
<v Speaker 2>high tech pop up tent because usually when we think

497
00:24:23.920 --> 00:24:26.599
<v Speaker 2>of radar, especially deep space or high powered weather radar,

498
00:24:26.799 --> 00:24:30.160
<v Speaker 2>we think of massive, rigid, solid metal bowls.

499
00:24:30.240 --> 00:24:31.880
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, the giant dishes, right.

500
00:24:31.799 --> 00:24:33.720
<v Speaker 2>Think of a satellite dish on the roof of a building,

501
00:24:33.720 --> 00:24:36.279
<v Speaker 2>but the size of a house. But these are small sects.

502
00:24:36.319 --> 00:24:39.240
<v Speaker 2>They are roughly the size of mini fridge. How do

503
00:24:39.279 --> 00:24:43.279
<v Speaker 2>you physically cram world class observatory level radar equipment into

504
00:24:43.279 --> 00:24:44.160
<v Speaker 2>a box that's small.

505
00:24:44.359 --> 00:24:46.920
<v Speaker 3>The simple answer is you have to fold it up.

506
00:24:47.440 --> 00:24:50.960
<v Speaker 3>And that is where the absolute genius of the deployable.

507
00:24:50.400 --> 00:24:52.279
<v Speaker 2>Mesh comes in. Okay, fold it up.

508
00:24:52.480 --> 00:24:55.480
<v Speaker 3>How when you launch a rocket, the most expensive and

509
00:24:55.559 --> 00:24:58.480
<v Speaker 3>limited resource you have is the volume inside the payload

510
00:24:58.519 --> 00:25:01.079
<v Speaker 3>fairing the nose cone of the rocket.

511
00:25:01.160 --> 00:25:02.799
<v Speaker 2>Right, there's barely any room exactly.

512
00:25:02.839 --> 00:25:07.160
<v Speaker 3>You cannot launch a massive, rigid metal radar dish on

513
00:25:07.240 --> 00:25:11.759
<v Speaker 3>a small, cost effective rocket. It simply won't fit. So

514
00:25:11.880 --> 00:25:15.079
<v Speaker 3>the engineers at Tendeg design these reflectors to be stowed

515
00:25:15.119 --> 00:25:18.240
<v Speaker 3>incredibly tightly against the side of the spacecraft bus during

516
00:25:18.240 --> 00:25:19.480
<v Speaker 3>the violent ride to space.

517
00:25:19.720 --> 00:25:21.880
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so it's packed down completely flat.

518
00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:25.319
<v Speaker 3>Yes, And once the satellites reach low Earth orbit and

519
00:25:25.359 --> 00:25:28.480
<v Speaker 3>they detach from the launch vehicle, the mechanisms trigger and

520
00:25:28.559 --> 00:25:32.839
<v Speaker 3>these reflectors deploy. They mechanically unfold, springing outward to form

521
00:25:32.920 --> 00:25:35.400
<v Speaker 3>a highly tensioned parabolic dish.

522
00:25:35.240 --> 00:25:38.240
<v Speaker 2>Literally like popping open umbrella when you step out into

523
00:25:38.240 --> 00:25:38.559
<v Speaker 2>the rain.

524
00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:42.559
<v Speaker 3>Exactly like an umbrella, but here is the critical difference.

525
00:25:43.640 --> 00:25:47.359
<v Speaker 3>This umbrella has to hold a perfect parabolic shape to

526
00:25:47.559 --> 00:25:51.759
<v Speaker 3>fractions of a millimeter while operating in the freezing cold

527
00:25:51.799 --> 00:25:55.279
<v Speaker 3>and boiling heat of the vacuum of space, all while

528
00:25:55.319 --> 00:26:00.480
<v Speaker 3>bouncing highly calibrated radar pulses deep into the Earth's atmosphere apostle.

529
00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:04.559
<v Speaker 3>It's not easy. The mesh itself is a specialized material,

530
00:26:04.640 --> 00:26:08.039
<v Speaker 3>often a gold plated molybdimum wire, and it's woven so

531
00:26:08.240 --> 00:26:10.960
<v Speaker 3>tightly that the radar waves actually treat it as a

532
00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:11.799
<v Speaker 3>solid surface.

533
00:26:11.920 --> 00:26:13.920
<v Speaker 2>Wait, how does that work? If it's a mesh, doesn't

534
00:26:13.920 --> 00:26:14.960
<v Speaker 2>it have holes in it?

535
00:26:14.960 --> 00:26:15.319
<v Speaker 3>It does?

536
00:26:15.400 --> 00:26:17.400
<v Speaker 2>Why wouldn't the radar energy just pass right through the

537
00:26:17.400 --> 00:26:19.240
<v Speaker 2>holes in the mesh like a sieve.

538
00:26:19.559 --> 00:26:22.720
<v Speaker 3>It comes down to the physics of electromagnetic wavelengths. The

539
00:26:22.839 --> 00:26:25.440
<v Speaker 3>radar waves being emitted by the JPL instrument have a

540
00:26:25.480 --> 00:26:28.319
<v Speaker 3>specific physical length. Okay, as long as the holes in

541
00:26:28.319 --> 00:26:30.839
<v Speaker 3>the mesh are significantly smaller than a fraction of that

542
00:26:30.880 --> 00:26:34.960
<v Speaker 3>specific radar wavelength, the wave physically cannot pass to the gap.

543
00:26:35.240 --> 00:26:37.119
<v Speaker 3>The wave interacts with the mesh as if it were

544
00:26:37.119 --> 00:26:39.400
<v Speaker 3>a perfectly smooth, solid sheet of metal.

545
00:26:39.640 --> 00:26:42.440
<v Speaker 2>Oh that's brilliant. So it's a solid mirror to the radar.

546
00:26:42.920 --> 00:26:45.640
<v Speaker 2>But it's light and flexible enough to fold up into

547
00:26:45.680 --> 00:26:46.720
<v Speaker 2>a tiny box for.

548
00:26:46.720 --> 00:26:51.599
<v Speaker 3>Launch precisely, And this miniaturization and folding technology is exactly

549
00:26:51.599 --> 00:26:57.279
<v Speaker 3>what makes coordinated multi satellite missions financially and physically possible today.

550
00:26:57.119 --> 00:26:58.720
<v Speaker 2>Right, because otherwise it would be way too big.

551
00:26:58.839 --> 00:27:02.720
<v Speaker 3>Exactly if you had to use traditional rigid metal dishes,

552
00:27:03.160 --> 00:27:06.640
<v Speaker 3>you would need three massive rockets to launch them, and

553
00:27:06.720 --> 00:27:12.079
<v Speaker 3>the cost would be absolutely astronomical. The deployable mesh democratizes

554
00:27:12.119 --> 00:27:13.480
<v Speaker 3>the science, but there is.

555
00:27:13.480 --> 00:27:15.839
<v Speaker 2>A massive quirk in this hardware lineup that we need

556
00:27:15.880 --> 00:27:19.079
<v Speaker 2>to unpack. The three satellites in this orbital ballet aren't

557
00:27:19.079 --> 00:27:22.559
<v Speaker 2>identical twins or I guess triplets. No, they're not. The

558
00:27:22.559 --> 00:27:25.240
<v Speaker 2>first satellite and the third satellite are relatively similar. They

559
00:27:25.240 --> 00:27:27.880
<v Speaker 2>both have the radar, but that middle satellite, the one

560
00:27:27.880 --> 00:27:30.240
<v Speaker 2>that arrives at the critical thirty second mark to measure

561
00:27:30.240 --> 00:27:32.839
<v Speaker 2>the explosive acceleration, is completely different.

562
00:27:32.960 --> 00:27:33.559
<v Speaker 3>Yes it is.

563
00:27:33.759 --> 00:27:36.319
<v Speaker 2>It carries the radar, sure, but it also carries a

564
00:27:36.359 --> 00:27:40.440
<v Speaker 2>microwave radiometer. Why does only the middle satellite have this

565
00:27:40.599 --> 00:27:42.319
<v Speaker 2>and what does a radiometer actually do.

566
00:27:42.640 --> 00:27:44.839
<v Speaker 3>To understand the radiometer, we have to look at the

567
00:27:44.920 --> 00:27:49.759
<v Speaker 3>fundamental difference between active and passive instruments. The spaceborne radars

568
00:27:49.759 --> 00:27:53.400
<v Speaker 3>built by JPL are active instruments. They are actively shooting

569
00:27:53.440 --> 00:27:56.799
<v Speaker 3>pulses of electromagnetic energy down into the storm and then

570
00:27:56.839 --> 00:27:59.319
<v Speaker 3>they wait to measure how much of that energy bounces

571
00:27:59.359 --> 00:28:02.880
<v Speaker 3>back off the physical water droplets and ice crystals inside

572
00:28:02.880 --> 00:28:03.519
<v Speaker 3>the updraft.

573
00:28:03.680 --> 00:28:06.640
<v Speaker 2>So the radar is taking a literal vertical X ray

574
00:28:06.839 --> 00:28:09.799
<v Speaker 2>of the elevator shaft. It's pinging the physical mass.

575
00:28:09.880 --> 00:28:13.799
<v Speaker 3>Yes, it gives you the high resolution vertical precipitation profile.

576
00:28:13.880 --> 00:28:16.599
<v Speaker 3>It shows you exactly where the dense water and ice

577
00:28:16.599 --> 00:28:18.880
<v Speaker 3>are located. But an X ray only shows you the

578
00:28:18.880 --> 00:28:21.720
<v Speaker 3>bones of a system, right, It doesn't show you the tissue,

579
00:28:21.799 --> 00:28:23.920
<v Speaker 3>the blood flow, or the temperature of the room the

580
00:28:23.920 --> 00:28:26.480
<v Speaker 3>patient is standing in. And that is exactly where the

581
00:28:26.519 --> 00:28:30.359
<v Speaker 3>microwave radiometer comes in. A radiometer is a passive instrument.

582
00:28:30.720 --> 00:28:33.480
<v Speaker 3>It doesn't send out pulses of energy. It simply opens

583
00:28:33.519 --> 00:28:34.519
<v Speaker 3>its eyes and listens.

584
00:28:34.720 --> 00:28:36.680
<v Speaker 2>What is it listening for microwaves?

585
00:28:36.799 --> 00:28:41.319
<v Speaker 3>Yes, specifically it is measuring the natural microwave radiation being

586
00:28:41.440 --> 00:28:43.480
<v Speaker 3>emitted by the Earth's atmosphere itself.

587
00:28:43.640 --> 00:28:48.519
<v Speaker 2>Wait, the atmosphere emits microwave radiation like a kitchen appliance.

588
00:28:48.519 --> 00:28:52.039
<v Speaker 3>Yes, but on a much, much famper scale. It comes

589
00:28:52.039 --> 00:28:56.200
<v Speaker 3>down to Plank's law and black body radiation. Every object

590
00:28:56.200 --> 00:29:00.480
<v Speaker 3>in the universe above absolute zero emits electromagnetic radiation based

591
00:29:00.519 --> 00:29:01.319
<v Speaker 3>on its temperature.

592
00:29:01.480 --> 00:29:03.880
<v Speaker 2>Okay, I think I remember that from high school physics right.

593
00:29:04.519 --> 00:29:07.640
<v Speaker 3>And in the Earth's atmosphere, molecules of water vapor are

594
00:29:07.680 --> 00:29:12.200
<v Speaker 3>constantly vibrating and rotating. As they vibrate, they emit incredibly

595
00:29:12.200 --> 00:29:16.400
<v Speaker 3>faint signals in the microwave spectrum. The microwave radiometer on

596
00:29:16.440 --> 00:29:19.559
<v Speaker 3>the middle satellite is tuned to the exact frequencies of

597
00:29:19.599 --> 00:29:22.039
<v Speaker 3>those specific water vapor emissions, so.

598
00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:25.519
<v Speaker 2>It can essentially see invisible humidity exactly.

599
00:29:26.200 --> 00:29:29.359
<v Speaker 3>By listening to these faint microwave whispers, the radiometer can

600
00:29:29.359 --> 00:29:31.799
<v Speaker 3>measure the total amount of invisible water vapor in the

601
00:29:31.960 --> 00:29:35.599
<v Speaker 3>entire atmospheric column. It can measure the liquid water content

602
00:29:35.640 --> 00:29:38.279
<v Speaker 3>of the surrounding clouds and the environmental temperature profile.

603
00:29:38.440 --> 00:29:38.839
<v Speaker 2>Wow.

604
00:29:38.960 --> 00:29:42.599
<v Speaker 3>The radiometer provides the wide angle atmospheric soup that the

605
00:29:42.640 --> 00:29:43.599
<v Speaker 3>storm is swimming in.

606
00:29:43.839 --> 00:29:45.960
<v Speaker 2>Oh I see. So the radar gives you the sharp

607
00:29:46.200 --> 00:29:50.000
<v Speaker 2>vertical spike of the updraft itself the bones, but the

608
00:29:50.079 --> 00:29:53.920
<v Speaker 2>radiometer gives you the humidity and the temperature surrounding that updraft,

609
00:29:54.240 --> 00:29:56.319
<v Speaker 2>the fuel that is actually feeding the engine.

610
00:29:56.519 --> 00:29:59.880
<v Speaker 3>Precisely, it acts as the thermodynamic anchor for the n

611
00:30:00.119 --> 00:30:02.920
<v Speaker 3>entire measurement, and you place it on the middle satellite

612
00:30:02.960 --> 00:30:06.480
<v Speaker 3>because that gives you the perfect midpoint spatial context for

613
00:30:06.559 --> 00:30:08.839
<v Speaker 3>the entire hundred and twenty second evolution.

614
00:30:09.240 --> 00:30:10.599
<v Speaker 2>That makes total sense, right.

615
00:30:10.680 --> 00:30:12.680
<v Speaker 3>While the first and third satellites are getting the book

616
00:30:12.759 --> 00:30:16.119
<v Speaker 3>ends of the vertical motion, the middle satellite is simultaneously

617
00:30:16.160 --> 00:30:20.160
<v Speaker 3>capturing the explosive vertical acceleration and taking a massive wide

618
00:30:20.200 --> 00:30:24.039
<v Speaker 3>angle snapshot of the environmental fuel feeding the whole process.

619
00:30:24.400 --> 00:30:28.000
<v Speaker 2>The level of mechanical and orbital coordination here is just unbelievable.

620
00:30:28.039 --> 00:30:31.319
<v Speaker 2>I mean, you have this intricately folded hardware packed with

621
00:30:31.440 --> 00:30:34.960
<v Speaker 2>active X ray vision radars and passive listening radiometers built

622
00:30:34.960 --> 00:30:38.200
<v Speaker 2>by different academic and commercial teams across the country, all

623
00:30:38.240 --> 00:30:40.880
<v Speaker 2>designed to fly in a perfect one and twenty second

624
00:30:40.920 --> 00:30:41.960
<v Speaker 2>stop motion dance.

625
00:30:42.119 --> 00:30:43.359
<v Speaker 3>It's a symphony, really.

626
00:30:43.400 --> 00:30:45.559
<v Speaker 2>But as anyone who has ever built a computer or

627
00:30:45.599 --> 00:30:49.240
<v Speaker 2>renovated house knows. Building the individual hardware components is only

628
00:30:49.279 --> 00:30:52.920
<v Speaker 2>half the battle. Ensuring that these delicate, high tech pop

629
00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:56.559
<v Speaker 2>up tents actually survive being strapped to a controlled explosion

630
00:30:56.880 --> 00:31:00.519
<v Speaker 2>and hurled into a deadly vacuum that is the next

631
00:31:00.559 --> 00:31:01.279
<v Speaker 2>massive hurdle.

632
00:31:01.599 --> 00:31:04.599
<v Speaker 3>Ah. The environment these machines must survive before they ever

633
00:31:04.680 --> 00:31:08.400
<v Speaker 3>take their first measurement is remarkably unforgiving. The testing phase

634
00:31:08.440 --> 00:31:10.759
<v Speaker 3>is often where missions literally live or.

635
00:31:10.799 --> 00:31:13.359
<v Speaker 2>Die, and the logistics of this pre launch phase sound

636
00:31:13.400 --> 00:31:16.519
<v Speaker 2>like an absolute nightmare. It is basically a high stakes,

637
00:31:16.680 --> 00:31:19.240
<v Speaker 2>highly fragile, multi state road trip.

638
00:31:19.359 --> 00:31:19.960
<v Speaker 3>It really is.

639
00:31:20.160 --> 00:31:22.519
<v Speaker 2>In late twenty twenty five and early twenty twenty six,

640
00:31:22.920 --> 00:31:26.039
<v Speaker 2>all these components started shipping around the country. The radars

641
00:31:26.119 --> 00:31:29.440
<v Speaker 2>left SoCal went to Blue Canyon and Colorado for integration

642
00:31:29.480 --> 00:31:33.079
<v Speaker 2>into the spacecraft buses. Then the first two assembled observatories

643
00:31:33.079 --> 00:31:37.119
<v Speaker 2>successfully underwent their vibration and thermal vacuum testing. Then they

644
00:31:37.160 --> 00:31:39.519
<v Speaker 2>were packed up in clean rooms and ship back across

645
00:31:39.519 --> 00:31:42.640
<v Speaker 2>Colorado to ten dig for test deployments of the delicate

646
00:31:42.680 --> 00:31:45.519
<v Speaker 2>metch reflectors. Then they were shipped back again to Blue

647
00:31:45.559 --> 00:31:48.880
<v Speaker 2>Canyon for even more system testing. The third satellite doesn't

648
00:31:48.880 --> 00:31:51.799
<v Speaker 2>even finish the scauntlant until September, and eventually they all

649
00:31:51.839 --> 00:31:54.759
<v Speaker 2>have to be safely transported to NASA's Wallups Flight Facility

650
00:31:54.799 --> 00:31:58.039
<v Speaker 2>in Virginia for the actual twenty twenty seven launch.

651
00:31:58.200 --> 00:32:02.880
<v Speaker 3>It is a relentless, exist exhausting logistical gauntlet. Every single

652
00:32:02.920 --> 00:32:05.640
<v Speaker 3>time you move a spacecraft you introduce the risk of

653
00:32:05.680 --> 00:32:09.599
<v Speaker 3>contamination or physical damage. But the extreme testing at each

654
00:32:09.640 --> 00:32:13.920
<v Speaker 3>of these facilities is absolutely non negotiably necessary.

655
00:32:14.160 --> 00:32:16.400
<v Speaker 2>I really want to talk about that testing gallet, because

656
00:32:16.440 --> 00:32:20.279
<v Speaker 2>the terms vibration testing and thermal vacuum testing are thrown

657
00:32:20.319 --> 00:32:22.319
<v Speaker 2>around a lot. I know what vibration is, and I

658
00:32:22.319 --> 00:32:24.480
<v Speaker 2>know what a vacuum is, but what does this actually

659
00:32:24.519 --> 00:32:27.400
<v Speaker 2>look like in a laboratory for a multimillion dollar satellite.

660
00:32:27.599 --> 00:32:28.680
<v Speaker 2>Let's start with the vibration.

661
00:32:28.960 --> 00:32:32.680
<v Speaker 3>Launching a rocket into orbit is not a smooth elevator ride.

662
00:32:32.759 --> 00:32:35.680
<v Speaker 3>It is incredibly violent. When you sit a payload on

663
00:32:35.720 --> 00:32:38.640
<v Speaker 3>top of a rocket, you are placing it above hundreds

664
00:32:38.640 --> 00:32:41.359
<v Speaker 3>of thousands of pounds of highly explosive liquid fuel.

665
00:32:41.640 --> 00:32:42.799
<v Speaker 2>Right, It's basically a bomb.

666
00:32:42.960 --> 00:32:46.839
<v Speaker 3>Essentially, Yes, When those engines ignite, they don't just push

667
00:32:46.880 --> 00:32:50.440
<v Speaker 3>the rocket up. They create an acoustic shock wave of

668
00:32:50.680 --> 00:32:54.279
<v Speaker 3>sound and physical force that bounces off the launch piss

669
00:32:54.319 --> 00:32:56.200
<v Speaker 3>and rips right back up through the body of the

670
00:32:56.279 --> 00:33:00.039
<v Speaker 3>rocket ouch. The g forces, the physical shaking, and the

671
00:33:00.079 --> 00:33:05.079
<v Speaker 3>acoustic resonance inside the enclosed payload firing are deafening and brutal.

672
00:33:05.559 --> 00:33:09.119
<v Speaker 3>It is enough physical energy to vibrate delicate electronics into

673
00:33:09.200 --> 00:33:11.839
<v Speaker 3>literal dust if they aren't engineered correctly.

674
00:33:12.240 --> 00:33:14.519
<v Speaker 2>So to test it do they basically put the satellite

675
00:33:14.559 --> 00:33:17.079
<v Speaker 2>on a giant subwarffer and just turn the bass all

676
00:33:17.119 --> 00:33:17.519
<v Speaker 2>the way up.

677
00:33:17.640 --> 00:33:24.319
<v Speaker 3>That's essentially what an acoustic chamber is. Yes, through a

678
00:33:24.440 --> 00:33:28.039
<v Speaker 3>massive mechanical shaker table. Oh, this table is programmed to

679
00:33:28.119 --> 00:33:31.799
<v Speaker 3>simulate the exact physical frequency and amplitude profile of the

680
00:33:31.839 --> 00:33:34.880
<v Speaker 3>specific rocket engine they will be launching on. They violently

681
00:33:34.920 --> 00:33:37.640
<v Speaker 3>shake the spacecraft on all three axis, the X, y,

682
00:33:37.720 --> 00:33:39.119
<v Speaker 3>and Z axis, and.

683
00:33:39.119 --> 00:33:40.880
<v Speaker 2>What happens if it fails? I mean, what is the

684
00:33:40.920 --> 00:33:41.839
<v Speaker 2>weakest link here?

685
00:33:42.160 --> 00:33:46.319
<v Speaker 3>The weakest link is almost always the deployable mechanisms. Think

686
00:33:46.400 --> 00:33:49.359
<v Speaker 3>back to that mesh radar reflector. It is folded up

687
00:33:49.400 --> 00:33:53.799
<v Speaker 3>with springs, hinges and tension cables. Right during that vibration test,

688
00:33:54.039 --> 00:33:57.720
<v Speaker 3>every single screw, every solder joint on the motherboard and

689
00:33:57.799 --> 00:34:01.160
<v Speaker 3>every folded hinge of that umbrella has to hold together perfectly.

690
00:34:02.039 --> 00:34:05.680
<v Speaker 3>If the acoustic resonance hits the exact natural frequency of

691
00:34:05.720 --> 00:34:09.760
<v Speaker 3>a single locking pin and that pin rattles loose during launch,

692
00:34:10.199 --> 00:34:12.800
<v Speaker 3>the reflector will not deploy it when it reaches orbit.

693
00:34:12.960 --> 00:34:15.360
<v Speaker 3>Yeh man, it will stay jammed against the side of

694
00:34:15.400 --> 00:34:17.800
<v Speaker 3>the bus, and a third of your entire mission is

695
00:34:17.840 --> 00:34:19.159
<v Speaker 3>basically dead on arrival.

696
00:34:19.519 --> 00:34:23.000
<v Speaker 2>That is parrifying. You spend years designing this delicate instrument

697
00:34:23.199 --> 00:34:25.079
<v Speaker 2>and then you just physically shake the life out of

698
00:34:25.119 --> 00:34:27.199
<v Speaker 2>it for hours to make sure it doesn't break. And

699
00:34:27.280 --> 00:34:29.559
<v Speaker 2>if it survives that, it moves on to the thermal

700
00:34:29.599 --> 00:34:30.679
<v Speaker 2>vacuum testing.

701
00:34:30.599 --> 00:34:32.840
<v Speaker 3>Yes, colloquially known in aerospace as.

702
00:34:32.679 --> 00:34:34.719
<v Speaker 2>The shake and Bake Shake and big Nice.

703
00:34:34.880 --> 00:34:37.800
<v Speaker 3>Once it survives the physical violence of the launch simulation,

704
00:34:38.159 --> 00:34:41.119
<v Speaker 3>it has to prove it can survive the environment of space.

705
00:34:41.760 --> 00:34:45.480
<v Speaker 3>So they put the entire satellite into a massive steel

706
00:34:45.519 --> 00:34:50.039
<v Speaker 3>thermal vacuum chamber. They seal the massive door and powerful

707
00:34:50.079 --> 00:34:53.719
<v Speaker 3>pumps suck all the atmospheric air out, dropping the pressure

708
00:34:53.760 --> 00:34:56.440
<v Speaker 3>to simulate the hard vacuum of low Earth orbit.

709
00:34:56.719 --> 00:34:59.239
<v Speaker 2>And then what they just blast it with heat lamps.

710
00:34:59.480 --> 00:35:02.800
<v Speaker 3>Yes, but the massive swings in temperature are what actually

711
00:35:02.800 --> 00:35:06.880
<v Speaker 3>make it lethal. Low Earth orbit is an environment of intense,

712
00:35:07.079 --> 00:35:10.880
<v Speaker 3>rapid extremes. Because there is no atmosphere to insulate the

713
00:35:10.880 --> 00:35:14.119
<v Speaker 3>spacecraft or conduct heat away from it, the temperature is

714
00:35:14.159 --> 00:35:17.800
<v Speaker 3>dictated entirely by direct radiation from the Sun. When the

715
00:35:17.840 --> 00:35:19.639
<v Speaker 3>satellite is on the day side of the Earth, in

716
00:35:19.679 --> 00:35:22.800
<v Speaker 3>direct unfiltered sunlight, the temperatures on the hull can ski

717
00:35:22.960 --> 00:35:25.559
<v Speaker 3>rocket to hundreds of degrees fahrenheit above zero.

718
00:35:25.679 --> 00:35:27.880
<v Speaker 2>The metal is literally baking exactly.

719
00:35:28.199 --> 00:35:31.000
<v Speaker 3>But then as the satellite travels at seventeen thousand miles

720
00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:33.679
<v Speaker 3>per hour, it passes behind the Earth into its shadow

721
00:35:33.880 --> 00:35:36.559
<v Speaker 3>the night side, and it gets cold, very cold. Without

722
00:35:36.599 --> 00:35:39.800
<v Speaker 3>the sun, the temperature instantly plunges into the darkness of space,

723
00:35:39.920 --> 00:35:41.880
<v Speaker 3>dropping to hundreds of degrees below zero.

724
00:35:42.280 --> 00:35:44.719
<v Speaker 2>And it does that orbit what every ninety.

725
00:35:44.519 --> 00:35:47.239
<v Speaker 3>Minutes, Roughly every ninety minutes. Imagine taking a piece of

726
00:35:47.280 --> 00:35:51.079
<v Speaker 3>delicate electronics out of a roaring oven and immediately dropping

727
00:35:51.119 --> 00:35:54.559
<v Speaker 3>it into liquid nitrogen over and over fifteen times a day.

728
00:35:54.920 --> 00:35:56.719
<v Speaker 2>That would destroy my phone instantly.

729
00:35:57.039 --> 00:36:01.079
<v Speaker 3>The physics of thermal expansion become your absolute worst enemy.

730
00:36:01.440 --> 00:36:04.000
<v Speaker 3>Materials expand when they get hot and shrink when they

731
00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:07.800
<v Speaker 3>get cold. If the metal frame of mesh reflector expands

732
00:36:07.800 --> 00:36:10.239
<v Speaker 3>at a slightly different rate than the mesh wire itself,

733
00:36:10.360 --> 00:36:14.000
<v Speaker 3>the tension breaks. Oh right, the parabolic shape warps, the

734
00:36:14.119 --> 00:36:18.840
<v Speaker 3>radar beam loses focus, and your data is completely useless. Furthermore,

735
00:36:19.119 --> 00:36:22.920
<v Speaker 3>electronics generate their own heat without error. To carry that

736
00:36:23.000 --> 00:36:26.840
<v Speaker 3>heat away via convection, the internal computers can literally cook

737
00:36:26.880 --> 00:36:29.599
<v Speaker 3>themselves from the inside in the vacuum. If the thermal

738
00:36:29.679 --> 00:36:31.679
<v Speaker 3>radiators aren't perfectly designed.

739
00:36:31.440 --> 00:36:35.280
<v Speaker 2>It's just a punishing, rigorous environment. They have to absolutely

740
00:36:35.360 --> 00:36:39.119
<v Speaker 2>guarantee that this intricate one hundred and twenty second orbital

741
00:36:39.199 --> 00:36:42.679
<v Speaker 2>dance will work flawlessly, because once it's up there, no

742
00:36:42.880 --> 00:36:45.639
<v Speaker 2>human hands can ever reach it to tighten a screw

743
00:36:45.760 --> 00:36:46.920
<v Speaker 2>or fix a jammed hinge.

744
00:36:47.039 --> 00:36:50.239
<v Speaker 3>That's exactly right. The testing phase is the only insurance

745
00:36:50.239 --> 00:36:50.960
<v Speaker 3>policy you have.

746
00:36:51.360 --> 00:36:54.039
<v Speaker 2>As we talk through the sheer complexity of this, you

747
00:36:54.039 --> 00:36:58.000
<v Speaker 2>know the JPL radars, the Blue Canyon buses, the Tendig reflectors,

748
00:36:58.280 --> 00:37:03.440
<v Speaker 2>the wallup's launch facility. It really highlights how many different names, companies,

749
00:37:03.559 --> 00:37:06.599
<v Speaker 2>and disciplines are involved in this one single project. It's

750
00:37:06.639 --> 00:37:09.400
<v Speaker 2>a huge ecosystem, right, It's not just a bunch of

751
00:37:09.400 --> 00:37:12.599
<v Speaker 2>guys in white lab coats in a single NASA basement anymore.

752
00:37:13.360 --> 00:37:15.159
<v Speaker 2>And this leads directly into something that I think is

753
00:37:15.199 --> 00:37:18.920
<v Speaker 2>fundamentally changing the entire way we explore our own planet.

754
00:37:19.119 --> 00:37:22.440
<v Speaker 3>The organizational structure and the philosophy of this mission are

755
00:37:22.639 --> 00:37:25.880
<v Speaker 3>just as innovative and frankly just as important as the

756
00:37:25.920 --> 00:37:26.760
<v Speaker 3>hardware itself.

757
00:37:26.880 --> 00:37:30.840
<v Speaker 2>Right. So, the NSEUS mission is led by a principal investigator,

758
00:37:31.079 --> 00:37:34.119
<v Speaker 2>Sue Vand and Heaver out of Colorado State University in FOURT. Collins.

759
00:37:34.239 --> 00:37:35.159
<v Speaker 3>Yes, she's brilliant.

760
00:37:35.199 --> 00:37:38.400
<v Speaker 2>It is part of NASA's broader Earth System observatory program,

761
00:37:38.599 --> 00:37:42.480
<v Speaker 2>but specifically it belongs to an architecture called FALCON. That

762
00:37:42.599 --> 00:37:45.599
<v Speaker 2>is an acronym that stands for Fleet for the atmosphere

763
00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:48.199
<v Speaker 2>linking commercial observations with NASA.

764
00:37:48.039 --> 00:37:48.719
<v Speaker 3>Yes, Falcon.

765
00:37:48.960 --> 00:37:51.320
<v Speaker 2>So what does that actually mean in practice? What does

766
00:37:51.360 --> 00:37:55.400
<v Speaker 2>it mean to be actively linking commercial observations with NASA

767
00:37:55.480 --> 00:37:58.039
<v Speaker 2>in this specific way? And why is that a big deal?

768
00:37:58.559 --> 00:38:00.800
<v Speaker 3>This touches on one of the most critical evolutions in

769
00:38:00.840 --> 00:38:04.880
<v Speaker 3>the history of space exploration and Earth science historically. If

770
00:38:04.920 --> 00:38:08.119
<v Speaker 3>you look back at the grand era of Earth observation

771
00:38:08.239 --> 00:38:11.559
<v Speaker 3>satellites the eighties, the nineties and early two thousands, the

772
00:38:11.599 --> 00:38:14.159
<v Speaker 3>paradigm was almost entirely monolithic.

773
00:38:14.719 --> 00:38:16.400
<v Speaker 2>What do you mean by monolithic.

774
00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:20.239
<v Speaker 3>I mean massive, singular, and highly centralized. NASA would identify

775
00:38:20.280 --> 00:38:22.960
<v Speaker 3>a broad scientific need, a single NASA center would spend

776
00:38:23.079 --> 00:38:27.840
<v Speaker 3>years designing the instruments. Then a massive traditional aerospace prime

777
00:38:27.880 --> 00:38:32.280
<v Speaker 3>contractor would be hired to build an enormous multicuon spacecraft

778
00:38:32.320 --> 00:38:34.840
<v Speaker 3>bus just to house it. It would take fifteen to

779
00:38:34.840 --> 00:38:37.719
<v Speaker 3>twenty years of development, cost billions of dollars, and launch

780
00:38:37.760 --> 00:38:40.519
<v Speaker 3>as a singular flagship mission like.

781
00:38:40.519 --> 00:38:44.199
<v Speaker 2>The Lansat satellites. Are those massive weather observatories.

782
00:38:43.679 --> 00:38:46.920
<v Speaker 3>Exactly, And to be clear, those are incredible machines that

783
00:38:46.960 --> 00:38:51.760
<v Speaker 3>have provided invaluable data. But the monolithic paradigm has massive,

784
00:38:52.079 --> 00:38:55.880
<v Speaker 3>massive drawbacks. It is agonizingly slow to develop, it is

785
00:38:55.960 --> 00:39:00.400
<v Speaker 3>unspeakably expensive, and most importantly, it creates a terrifying single

786
00:39:00.519 --> 00:39:01.360
<v Speaker 3>point of failure.

787
00:39:01.599 --> 00:39:04.159
<v Speaker 2>Oh because if it breaks, if.

788
00:39:03.920 --> 00:39:06.840
<v Speaker 3>That one rocket explodes on the launch pad, or if

789
00:39:06.920 --> 00:39:10.079
<v Speaker 3>one critical instrument fails to deploy an orbit, two decades

790
00:39:10.119 --> 00:39:13.920
<v Speaker 3>of science and billions of dollars evaporate instantly. The entire

791
00:39:14.039 --> 00:39:17.079
<v Speaker 3>field of studies stalls out for another twenty years while

792
00:39:17.079 --> 00:39:19.639
<v Speaker 3>they try to scrape together the budget to build a replacement.

793
00:39:19.840 --> 00:39:22.480
<v Speaker 2>That is a terrifying way to do science, putting all

794
00:39:22.480 --> 00:39:24.440
<v Speaker 2>your eggs in one billion dollar basket.

795
00:39:24.519 --> 00:39:27.800
<v Speaker 3>Precisely, the shift we are seeing now, which is perfectly

796
00:39:27.840 --> 00:39:30.800
<v Speaker 3>embodied by the Falcon architecture, is the shift toward the

797
00:39:30.840 --> 00:39:36.280
<v Speaker 3>fleet mentality. It's about agility, modularity, scalability, and interconnectedness.

798
00:39:36.360 --> 00:39:37.679
<v Speaker 2>Okay, I like those buzzwords.

799
00:39:37.760 --> 00:39:42.360
<v Speaker 3>By intentionally linking academic institutions like Colorado State University, commercial

800
00:39:42.400 --> 00:39:46.159
<v Speaker 3>space partners like Tendig and Blue Canyon Technologies, and traditional

801
00:39:46.159 --> 00:39:50.239
<v Speaker 3>government centers like JPL, the science becomes vastly more nimble

802
00:39:50.280 --> 00:39:50.960
<v Speaker 3>and resilient.

803
00:39:51.519 --> 00:39:54.800
<v Speaker 2>So instead of NASA having to invent the entire spacecraft

804
00:39:54.840 --> 00:39:59.000
<v Speaker 2>bus from scratch and design every single thruster and solar panel,

805
00:39:59.480 --> 00:40:02.039
<v Speaker 2>they can just go to the commercial sector. Exactly, they

806
00:40:02.039 --> 00:40:04.800
<v Speaker 2>can go to a company like Blue Canyon who says, hey,

807
00:40:04.880 --> 00:40:10.280
<v Speaker 2>we already mass produce these highly reliable, standardized small satellite buses.

808
00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:13.719
<v Speaker 2>Just bolt your GPL radar onto the top of it.

809
00:40:14.079 --> 00:40:17.000
<v Speaker 3>That is exactly the model. The commercial space sector over

810
00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:19.559
<v Speaker 3>the last decade has driven the cost of access to

811
00:40:19.639 --> 00:40:23.599
<v Speaker 3>space and the cost of standardized satellite components down to

812
00:40:23.679 --> 00:40:24.719
<v Speaker 3>a tiny fraction.

813
00:40:24.440 --> 00:40:26.360
<v Speaker 2>Of what they used to be, which is awesome.

814
00:40:26.440 --> 00:40:29.639
<v Speaker 3>It is NASA can leverage that relentless commercial speed and

815
00:40:29.679 --> 00:40:34.280
<v Speaker 3>manufacturing efficiency while still providing the world class, bespoke scientific

816
00:40:34.320 --> 00:40:37.440
<v Speaker 3>instruments that only a place like JPL has the expertise

817
00:40:37.480 --> 00:40:41.159
<v Speaker 3>to build. And crucially, the principal investigator at the university

818
00:40:41.199 --> 00:40:44.079
<v Speaker 3>gets to focus almost entirely on the science, the data

819
00:40:44.119 --> 00:40:47.840
<v Speaker 3>and the meteorology, rather than spending their entire career managing

820
00:40:47.880 --> 00:40:50.880
<v Speaker 3>a monolithic, decade long engineering program.

821
00:40:50.960 --> 00:40:53.679
<v Speaker 2>It's almost like building an observatory with commercial legos, but

822
00:40:53.840 --> 00:40:57.239
<v Speaker 2>on a massive governmental and academic scale.

823
00:40:56.920 --> 00:40:59.840
<v Speaker 3>And the word fleet in falcon is the most crucial part.

824
00:41:00.599 --> 00:41:05.039
<v Speaker 3>INCFS is one specific mission looking at updrafts, but it

825
00:41:05.079 --> 00:41:09.039
<v Speaker 3>is part of a much larger, overlapping network of atmosphere

826
00:41:09.039 --> 00:41:12.960
<v Speaker 3>observing satellite right there are others. By utilizing cheap commercial

827
00:41:13.000 --> 00:41:17.400
<v Speaker 3>small SATs, NASA can launch dozens of smaller targeted missions.

828
00:41:17.639 --> 00:41:21.599
<v Speaker 3>They combine data from different hardware contributions across this entire fleet.

829
00:41:22.199 --> 00:41:25.039
<v Speaker 3>If one satellite in the fleet fails, you lose a

830
00:41:25.119 --> 00:41:28.079
<v Speaker 3>tiny fraction of your data, not the entire mission.

831
00:41:28.159 --> 00:41:29.920
<v Speaker 2>You don't lose the whole science program.

832
00:41:30.119 --> 00:41:34.320
<v Speaker 3>Exactly you start to build a continuous, real time, highly resilient,

833
00:41:34.400 --> 00:41:37.639
<v Speaker 3>three dimensional model of the Earth's atmosphere fed by a

834
00:41:37.679 --> 00:41:41.199
<v Speaker 3>swarm of sensors, rather than relying on one giant satellite

835
00:41:41.239 --> 00:41:44.000
<v Speaker 3>that only passes over your city every few days.

836
00:41:43.800 --> 00:41:45.920
<v Speaker 2>And bringing this all back to you, the listener sitting

837
00:41:45.920 --> 00:41:48.320
<v Speaker 2>in your car or walking your dog right now. This

838
00:41:48.440 --> 00:41:52.079
<v Speaker 2>interconnected fleet mentality is exactly what is going to power

839
00:41:52.119 --> 00:41:55.559
<v Speaker 2>the future of your daily life. Absolutely, this agility, this

840
00:41:55.719 --> 00:41:59.199
<v Speaker 2>constant overlapping stream of data from commercial and NASA sensors

841
00:41:59.679 --> 00:42:02.840
<v Speaker 2>is what will eventually drive the weather alerts right on

842
00:42:02.880 --> 00:42:06.880
<v Speaker 2>your phone. It is the fundamental difference between getting a broad,

843
00:42:07.199 --> 00:42:10.840
<v Speaker 2>vague warning that your general county might experience heavy rains

844
00:42:10.840 --> 00:42:16.280
<v Speaker 2>sometime tonight versus an urgent, incredibly precise alert that a

845
00:42:16.360 --> 00:42:20.400
<v Speaker 2>specific catastrophic flash flood is going to hit your exact

846
00:42:20.440 --> 00:42:22.000
<v Speaker 2>neighborhood in twenty two minutes.

847
00:42:22.079 --> 00:42:26.840
<v Speaker 3>It's the democratization of data. The transition from massive, monolithic

848
00:42:26.920 --> 00:42:30.920
<v Speaker 3>science to this agile, interconnected fleet is what takes these

849
00:42:30.960 --> 00:42:34.719
<v Speaker 3>complex atmospheric discoveries out of the esoteric academic journals and

850
00:42:34.760 --> 00:42:37.719
<v Speaker 3>puts them directly into the hands of emergency managers. City

851
00:42:37.760 --> 00:42:39.360
<v Speaker 3>planners and the public.

852
00:42:39.679 --> 00:42:42.199
<v Speaker 2>It's what helps your local government know exactly when to

853
00:42:42.199 --> 00:42:45.440
<v Speaker 2>open the spillways on the reservoir, saving millions in infrastructure

854
00:42:45.480 --> 00:42:47.920
<v Speaker 2>damage and preserving the drinking water you rely on for

855
00:42:47.920 --> 00:42:49.719
<v Speaker 2>the rest of the year. So to pull all of

856
00:42:49.760 --> 00:42:52.880
<v Speaker 2>these complex threads together, we are looking at a very

857
00:42:52.920 --> 00:42:56.440
<v Speaker 2>near future where we are launching a synchronized high speed

858
00:42:56.519 --> 00:43:00.559
<v Speaker 2>orbital ballet of small satellites. We are using commercially supported

859
00:43:00.599 --> 00:43:04.000
<v Speaker 2>deployable pop up space radars to take a perfectly timed

860
00:43:04.199 --> 00:43:07.079
<v Speaker 2>one hundred and twenty second stop motion X ray of

861
00:43:07.119 --> 00:43:10.239
<v Speaker 2>the violent vertical engines that drive our global weather. We

862
00:43:10.280 --> 00:43:13.679
<v Speaker 2>are finally peering inside the invisible elevator shaft with the

863
00:43:13.719 --> 00:43:17.679
<v Speaker 2>tropical convective storms that simultaneously give us life and threaten

864
00:43:17.719 --> 00:43:18.239
<v Speaker 2>our cities.

865
00:43:18.400 --> 00:43:21.559
<v Speaker 3>It is a monumental, hard fought leap forward in our

866
00:43:21.639 --> 00:43:26.360
<v Speaker 3>understanding of the planet's thermodynamic engine. But if we project

867
00:43:26.480 --> 00:43:28.960
<v Speaker 3>this capability forward, if we follow the logic of the

868
00:43:29.000 --> 00:43:31.719
<v Speaker 3>science to its ultimate conclusion, it actually leaves us with

869
00:43:31.760 --> 00:43:35.599
<v Speaker 3>a truly profound and maybe even slightly unsettling thought to consider.

870
00:43:35.800 --> 00:43:37.000
<v Speaker 2>Oh wow, okay, what's that?

871
00:43:37.360 --> 00:43:40.639
<v Speaker 3>Well, if the NINGQS mission and the massive broader falcon

872
00:43:40.679 --> 00:43:43.440
<v Speaker 3>fleet that follows it eventually allow us to perfectly map

873
00:43:43.480 --> 00:43:46.599
<v Speaker 3>the exact seconds the storm decides to become destructive.

874
00:43:46.199 --> 00:43:47.880
<v Speaker 2>Right if we know exactly what it's doing.

875
00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:52.679
<v Speaker 3>Exactly, if we truly understand the thermodynamic levers, the precise

876
00:43:52.800 --> 00:43:56.199
<v Speaker 3>convective mass flux, the humidity, and the wind shear that

877
00:43:56.239 --> 00:43:58.599
<v Speaker 3>tips a storm from a gentle rain maker into a

878
00:43:58.639 --> 00:44:03.119
<v Speaker 3>catastrophic lethal event. How long until humanity moves from simply

879
00:44:03.159 --> 00:44:07.360
<v Speaker 3>forecasting severe weather to actively trying to intervene in its development?

880
00:44:07.559 --> 00:44:09.760
<v Speaker 2>Oh wow, I didn't even think of that.

881
00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:13.519
<v Speaker 3>If you know the precise moment, the exact minute and location,

882
00:44:13.679 --> 00:44:16.679
<v Speaker 3>where that updraft engine is redlining and accelerating toward a

883
00:44:16.719 --> 00:44:20.159
<v Speaker 3>tornado or a massive hail event, do you just watch

884
00:44:20.199 --> 00:44:23.480
<v Speaker 3>it happen and send out a siren warning? Or as

885
00:44:23.519 --> 00:44:26.159
<v Speaker 3>the technology catches up to the predictive models, do you

886
00:44:26.199 --> 00:44:29.480
<v Speaker 3>eventually try to physically throw a wrench into the elevator shaft?

887
00:44:29.559 --> 00:44:30.599
<v Speaker 2>Like, actually stop it?

888
00:44:30.760 --> 00:44:33.599
<v Speaker 3>Do you see the cloud alter the temperature or somehow

889
00:44:33.599 --> 00:44:35.440
<v Speaker 3>disrupt the shear before it kills people?

890
00:44:35.840 --> 00:44:40.400
<v Speaker 2>Weather modification based on perfect real time predictive mechanics. That

891
00:44:40.599 --> 00:44:43.599
<v Speaker 2>is a massive, incredibly heavy thought to leave off on

892
00:44:44.239 --> 00:44:46.639
<v Speaker 2>well as we all keep watching the lobby doors open

893
00:44:46.639 --> 00:44:49.079
<v Speaker 2>and the rainfall down. At least now we know there's

894
00:44:49.079 --> 00:44:51.760
<v Speaker 2>a synchronized fleet of satellites getting ready to look inside

895
00:44:51.840 --> 00:44:55.119
<v Speaker 2>the concrete walls of the skyscraper. Until next time, keep

896
00:44:55.159 --> 00:44:55.639
<v Speaker 2>looking up