WEBVTT FILE

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[arcade game sounds,
lasers shooting]

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I grew up playing
video games about shooting

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lasers at asteroids,
and now it’s my job to shoot

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lasers at asteroids. It
never stops amazing me.

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[music]

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My name is Tim Haltigin
from the Canadian

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Space Agency, and I’m the
Canadian Mission Manager on

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OSIRIS-REx. I’m responsible for
the overall operations of the

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OLA instrument and also for
coordinating the contributions

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of the Canadian Science Team. So
OSIRIS-REx is an international

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collaboration led by NASA that
is a mission to go to an

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asteroid named Bennu, capture a
sample of it, and bring it back

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to Earth so we can understand a
little bit more what it’s made

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of. Understanding the shape of
asteroid Bennu is going to be

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absolutely fundamental to
understanding the geology and

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putting it in context. The other
reason you really need to

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understand the topography
extremely well is that when

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we’re going in to take a sample,
it’s a very very fine

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measurement. And so if you’re
coming in, you’ve got the

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sampling head at the end of this
arm that has to come in

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perfectly square to the surface.
If you don’t understand shape at

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sort of a 30-centimeter scale,
you’re not going to be able to

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collect a sample. So OLA, or the
OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter, is

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an instrument on the spacecraft
that has two lasers inside of

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it, and it acts sort of like a
3D scanner. OLA’s going to

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create a three-dimensional map
of the entire asteroid Bennu at

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a resolution of about one point
every seven centimeters. This

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operates very similar to a
radar, however instead of using

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a radio wave, it uses light. And
so by measuring very accurately

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how long it takes for that laser
pulse to go out, and bounce off

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a surface, and come back, you
can measure a very accurate

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distance away from the
spacecraft. The reason we have

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two different lasers is that we
have to measure the asteroid

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from different distances away
from it. So the high-powered

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laser, we can use from about
seven kilometers in to about one

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kilometer away from the
asteroid. The low-energy laser

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we can then use from one
kilometer and inwards. And so as

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we get in closer and closer to
the asteroid, we can make a lot

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higher-resolution maps and
understand the shape of certain

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regions even better. The
Canadian Space Agency

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contributed OLA to this mission
for a number of reasons. First

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is that it allows Canadian
scientists to have access to

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astromaterials for the very
first time. So these are the

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first samples that are coming
back on a sample return mission

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that Canada is going to own a
portion of. The second reason is

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that it really highlights the
expertise of Canadian scientists

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and engineers, and so the
ability to contribute something

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like this to a mission as
exciting as OSIRIS-REx really

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means a lot to the Agency and to
Canada. If you ask anyone that’s

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ever built a flight instrument
for space, they’ll tell you all

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kinds of fun stories about the
challenges they’ve had doing it.

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When you’re building an
instrument, you have an original

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design, you build a prototype,
and you test it. What you want

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to do is something called “test
as you fly.” Flying an

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instrument in space, space is a
horrible place. So with flight

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instruments, what you need to do
is put them on a table and shake

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them really hard to make sure
they’re going to be able to

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survive the launch. You need to
bombard them with radiation to

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make sure your electronics are
still going to work. You need to

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put them in a chamber and
completely evacuate it to make

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sure that everything still works
when you’re in a vacuum. In the

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end ultimately what you have is
an extremely robust system that

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you’re confident that when you
strap it to the side of the

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spacecraft, launch it, and fire
it in space, it’s going to work

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beautifully. I am incredibly
excited to actually see what

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this asteroid looks like. When
we get there and we see the

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first images and generate that
first shape model, I think it’s

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going to surprise everyone.

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[music]

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[music ends]