1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,549
I am Badri Younes; I'm the Deputy
Associate Administrator for Space

2
00:00:04,549 --> 00:00:09,719
Communication Navigation. Before TDRS
we communicated with our missions in

3
00:00:09,719 --> 00:00:14,670
space through direct transmission to the
ground. We needed ground station at different

4
00:00:14,670 --> 00:00:19,619
parts of the world to have as much
contact with the mission as possible but

5
00:00:19,619 --> 00:00:24,480
you know, two thirds of the Earth is water. So much of the ground stations that we have were

6
00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:29,310
on the ground and sometimes we relied on ships in the ocean to provide some

7
00:00:29,310 --> 00:00:34,530
coverage. Altogether we couldn't support
more than 50% of the time to

8
00:00:34,530 --> 00:00:39,719
provide daily support to any, any, any
mission. That's when the concept for a

9
00:00:39,719 --> 00:00:46,940
different way of doing business, it came
about in the mid 70s. It was a revolution.

10
00:00:46,940 --> 00:00:54,840
It increased our support from 15% to
more than 85%. From way up in space you

11
00:00:54,840 --> 00:01:00,690
can have full visibility of, you can see,
from one single point in space, from a

12
00:01:00,690 --> 00:01:05,100
geosynchronous orbit almost half of the
Earth. Missions that are flying

13
00:01:05,100 --> 00:01:10,320
beneath that geosynchronous orbit, now
they relay data to that data relay

14
00:01:10,320 --> 00:01:13,439
satellite and then transmitted to a
point on the ground.

15
00:01:13,439 --> 00:01:18,330
So, with two data relay satellites you are
providing coverage, you know, like

16
00:01:18,330 --> 00:01:23,880
full-time, global coverage to all
missions close to, if not more than, 85%

17
00:01:23,880 --> 00:01:28,979
of the time. The mission needs
are growing. We are sending humans to

18
00:01:28,979 --> 00:01:33,360
deep space. We are seeing the
requirements and the communication needs

19
00:01:33,360 --> 00:01:37,920
growing exponentially as opposed to
today and NASA has decided to establish

20
00:01:37,920 --> 00:01:42,479
a permanent presence in the solar system and
as you send the humans into deep

21
00:01:42,479 --> 00:01:47,700
space on a journey that may take up to
three years even more than that, you need

22
00:01:47,700 --> 00:01:51,479
to still provide them the kind of
quality of life that they learned or

23
00:01:51,479 --> 00:01:56,399
they have been accustomed to on the
space station or on the ground. So you'll

24
00:01:56,399 --> 00:02:00,840
need to expand the bandwidth available
to them.  I have made a commitment that

25
00:02:00,840 --> 00:02:07,079
communication will not be a showstopper
and enabling future space exploration.

26
00:02:07,079 --> 00:02:12,840
The whole thing is has been a team
effort. I'm grateful to what Goddard has

27
00:02:12,840 --> 00:02:16,590
done, to the TDRS team, to all our folks down at the launch

28
00:02:16,590 --> 00:02:20,850
services down at the at the Cape, and as
well as the ULA. Boeing has done a

29
00:02:20,850 --> 00:02:26,820
wonderful job and readying in a very
capable spacecraft and this is going to

30
00:02:26,820 --> 00:02:31,290
help us in meeting the requirement in
the 2020s and the early 2030s.  It's

31
00:02:31,290 --> 00:02:36,090
helpful that NASA allows you to be
creative, innovative, bring crazy

32
00:02:36,090 --> 00:02:39,060
ideas, you know, 
out-of-the-box ideas. We are all

33
00:02:39,060 --> 00:02:45,150
driven by that curiosity, by that
wandering spirit trying to discover and,

34
00:02:45,150 --> 00:02:50,640
you know, the unknown that's what NASA is
all about. The place for dreamers and for

35
00:02:50,640 --> 00:02:54,620
those who believe that they can make the
dream come true.

36
00:02:54,620 --> 00:02:58,183
beep, beep, beep, beep