all right so first off
Welcome to our special operations room
here in Mission Control at Johnson's
Space Center uh I'm very excited to have
you here it's an honor to be here yeah
I'm very excited you're here
um as you know I'm Justin Nicholas I was
the lead uh designer for Alexa on this
project and I'll be kind of helping you
through your experience day with
Callisto great so Callisto is a
technology demonstration between WebEx
Lockheed Martin and Amazon
and we're testing how commercial
technology can help future astronauts on
deep space missions
but I don't have to tell you that you
like myself you've been working on this
project for a while that's right it's
this has been a long time coming just
about four years now you're right uh why
don't you explain to me a little bit
you're about your role on the project oh
sure thing so um just from the very
start when the Lockheed approached
Amazon I was on the first call
and they approached us and say you know
we're going to send uh the Artemis with
the Artemis One mission
we'd like to send a payload that's going
to help us engage the public and so they
said well how can basically kind of
thought how can we do that and so that's
when they had the idea of well why not a
voice assistant let's let's do an
experience whereby people can interact
with with an entity that would be on
board the craft and so the approach to
Amazon said hey you know could you embed
it Alexa on on here and so that was the
first call and so we had I had lots of
questions and of course as a Solutions
architect that's my job to actually
figure out okay can we actually do this
that's a big question for this project
that's right and uh in a Amazonian
fashion if you're about 70 percent you can sure
you can do something you go full speed
on it and I think I just reached that
threshold uh maybe about a week later
well I think we're all very happy that
you made that threshold so was yeah
proving to be a very exciting uh beta
test if you will that's right we we look
at this as a you know not just engaging
the public but the true technology
demonstration
yeah so well we did invite you here
today to work on any longer as you know
your work is done it's up on Orion it's
on its way to the Moon today instead
we've invited you here to help us test
it as you know on Artemis one there's a
lot of things we're testing we're
testing the launch vehicle with the SLS
we're testing the crew cabin with Orion
and we're testing Callisto our payload
today
so what we're going to do to do that
test is you're going to imagine that you
are an astronaut inside a Orion a virtual
crew member inside the vehicle as you
interact with the technology today how
does that sound that sounds great I am
so ready all right great uh did you ever
want to go to space Oh my gosh yes from
the very uh beginning uh you know I
remember you know watching the space
shuttle launches
um you know when I was eight or nine you
know it has been a lifelong passion for
me and that's why this project is so
special well we weren't able to get you
a seat on board Orion today however I
think this is the next best thing it is
all right so like I said imagine that
you're a crew member inside of Orion and
uh you're on your way to the moon so
we're going to go through this we're
going to do this test in kind of a day
in the life of an astronaut so in the
moments that you wake up to the moment
that you go to sleep so to in order to
kind of help facilitate that I'm going
to bring up some camera views that were
taken recently uh Rich can you bring up
the external cameras
all right
so these are views taken from cameras
that are mounted on the solar ring solar
arrays uh outside of Orion amazing yeah
Isn't that cool imagine that you wake up
inside the vehicle and these are the
views that you see out of your window
yep
gives a new meaning yeah better than any
of you out of a hotel that I've seen
that's right almost looks like a
rendering
yeah
and what do I see up here I think I see
the moon
uh yeah so these photos here are uh
they're taking the last couple days
these are not live feeds yes but uh how
would you like to see a live feed from
inside the vehicle I would love to I've
been waiting for this moment for a long
time so we're gonna do two things
um we're going to I believe we're going
to hit the button here to initiate the
call
okay we're gonna we're gonna hit the
button to initiate the call and what
that's going to do is we're going to
connect this Desk Pro there's a camera
here and it's going to connect us to the
tablet inside of Callisto right and
we're going to see the inside of the
vehicle all at the same time
so sounds exciting when you're ready
press the call Orion button there to
initiate the call let's do it yeah
that is amazing there you are in space
right now
it's truly an experience
yeah so these are live this is a live
feed from inside Orion and you can see
yourself on the tablet over here to be
able to test this video call the
engineers at WebEx had to create a
bespoke version of their software so
they have this high quality video that's
let's say it's 10 lanes of data
and they had to condense it down into
like a bike lane to be able to go
through the DSN to be able to have this
high quality look on the outside as it
gets to the iPad you know what's really
neat is that you can see actually the
delay okay when we're talking
yeah that's amazing would you like to
get a selfie of your uh to commemorate
this service all right let's do that
and I'll take one of just you as well
okay
all right so uh astronauts time in space
is very scheduled they're very busy
their time is very precious and uh they
follow a strict schedule in a timeline
and the terminal in front of you we have
a timeline that we're going to follow as
well right so
uh throughout the course of your time
here we're going to refer back to this
timeline and kind of check these things
off as we go uh we all I also have a
support team that's going to be talking
to in the area so if we need to jump
around we might have to do that as well
okay all right so one of the first
things that people do when they wake up
on Earth usually is they grab their
phone they want to see what they've
missed what's coming up for the day you
know kind of get a general status when
astronauts wake up that's usually one of
the things they do as well they check a
status and one of the things they check
is the battery status
so the ability to
um
to be able to see how what the status of
the battery is and because the battery
provides the power to the subsystems
that keep the vehicle and the astronauts
safe let me check with support are we
going to be able to bring up the battery
displays or not
Ari are we able to bring up the battery
displays or not
are we skipping those
all right so we're going to bring up
those battery displays and you can see
so on the left hand side this is a tight
shot of the Callisto payload now on the
right hand side this is a view of what
it would look like if you were sitting
in one of the astronaut seats
oh that's unbelievable so what do I see
on the left there is that it looks like
a mannequin that is a mannequin so that
mannequin is simulating having a human
on board and as it uh on this flight
it's Gathering a lot of data as it goes
around the moon and collecting that data
so that we can use that for future
flights
yes yes pretty awesome Commander Campos
isn't that Snoopy I see that is very
good yeah that's the uh zero g indicator
uh Snoopy uh that uh looks like it's a
little buried down in the in the front
there but yeah
all right so I see that we switched over
to the display now this display over
here on the left you can see this is
gonna be similar to what future
astronauts might see when they look at
the battery display okay so taking a
look at that you see that our status
report we need to get the battery status
so can you take a look at that and and
tell me what the battery status is sure
uh it looks like the batteries are
charging
right now and looks like they're all
green
and it's hard to see the numbers but it
looks like it's nominal right 100
your your guess is out is honestly
better than mine yeah uh so that was a
great great stab at that uh I don't I
didn't expect you to be able to read
this because astronauts go through this
extensive training to be able to be able
to understand these dense and complex
displays like this however one of the
things that this technology
demonstration that we're testing is to
be able to take that same information
and it put it into optimized displays
sure so I'll bring one of those up now
uh Ari can you bring up the optimized
solar display
so it takes a few seconds to be able to
get that command up to the vehicle to
make that switch
and there is the optimized solar display
so now taking a look at this display can
you give me the average battery charge
oh let's see this oh this this looks uh
a lot easier to read actually average
battery charge
93.9 that is correct so you're halfway
to becoming an astronaut right now oh I
feel so good so uh yeah to be able to
take this information put it in new
displays we can optimize it for the crew
for engineers or for the general public
like ourselves
all right we're going to bring up one
more display
Ari can you bring up the
Telemetry display
again we gotta send that command up to
the vehicle so they can make that switch
on the tablet inside a Callisto so who's
sending in the command uh so I am
talking to the support team behind you
right now and they're coordinating with
an engineering room that's on the other
side of this wall behind the big screen
awesome and then there's a whole
building of people that are supporting
us as well so there's a lot of magic
that's happening behind the scenes and
after our session we can go around and
maybe meet a few of them right yeah look
forward to it so here's that optimized
Telemetry screen I was talking about if
you can look at our crew timeline we
need to confirm the Met MET stands for
Mission elapsed time so you're familiar
with the T minus countdown I am that's
what happens right before launch after
takeoff it switches over into met which
is Mission elapsed time so if you can
look up there and if you can confirm
what day of the mission we're in we're
on day three
take a look
correct look at that all right we are
cruising through our checklist here so
uh the next thing on our checklist is is
to do an oxygen level check so uh one of
uh instead of logging on to another
display screen to be able to do that we
are going to use our virtual assistant
onboard Alexa
the moment I've been waiting for right
uh so as you know uh all the information
that's been powering these displays
Alexa also has access to that
information oh that's amazing right so
what we're going to do is uh if you want
to grab this push button here yes
all right and we're just going to wait
one second so we can bring up
um the video
of us on screen
before we do that connection
all right that is coming up nope I got
it
that is coming up in just a second and
there we are all right
so remember press and hold and go ahead
when you're ready
Alexa how much oxygen do we have left
all right
so we're gonna test so as you know this
is a test of our technology so we're
going to go through a different a lot of
different circumstances to be able to
test this out but what we're going to do
today is we're going to have you go a
little bit closer to the microphone and
we're going to have you try that same
command one more time
Alexa how much oxygen do we have left
it's awesome look at that light ring
right
years of work come together for this
moment right here
pretty awesome it's awesome four years
very informational
yeah it looks like uh I'd be uh fine on
board
all right so we have two more uh status
reports we're gonna do um so let's go
ahead and uh check the lunar ETA
Alexa how long until you reach the Moon
all right so we're gonna try that one
more time
Alexa how long until you reach the Moon
she seems to be a little temperamental
today
okay so what we're gonna do is we're
gonna we're gonna move on from the lunar
ETA and go to the vehicle speed so you
have the command there why don't you
give this one a try
Alexa how fast is Orion going
foreign
so this time it sounds like I'm getting
some support here it sounds like it's a
little hot in the mic so if you could
try to do it not as loud but your tone
and your distance is good
a lot a lot of tests right let's let's
do it that's how it's why we're here all
right let's do it
Alexa how fast is Orion going
professional
s
so this is all happening on Orion
without the being able to connect to the
cloud yes so Amazon as you know uses
something called local voice control
technology that allows all the automatic
speech recognition so turning our voice
into words natural language
understanding returning those words into
the commander the intent of what you
want to do and that's all being done on
board the vehicle without being sent to
the cloud if uh I'm sure you have Alexa
devices in your house plenty of probably
too many right like myself
so as you know when you talk to that
advice the command goes up to the cloud
and then comes back it happens very fast
but it happens if you were an astronaut
on board Orion and you're on The Far
Side of the Moon you make that request
it would take upwards of 13 seconds to
go back down to earth hit the cloud and
back up having local voice control will
give astronauts the ability to access
that information from the vehicle
without immediately without having to
incur that Communications leg of course
uh so I'm going to ask you are you aware
of any other places that Alexa and
Amazon that uses local voice control
yeah I am aware that our 4th gen devices
support local voice control for some
utterances for for example volume up
volume down okay so if your device is
offline you can use those commands you
can ask for time and we also support
some smart home commands as well if you
have a connected equipment or lights for
example did I hear that we use in Alexa
Auto as well uh so in Alexa Auto it's
actually a quite important uh for Alexa
built in and cars to support the offline
mode because you can be for example on
top of a mountain with no cell reception
it needs to work yeah you don't want to
be cut off from Alexa on top of a
mountain uh so millions of people here
on Earth rely on Alexa to manage their
smart home I'm guessing that you have
some smart home devices in your house
many yeah probably too many to count
like myself so on board Callisto we have
the ability to change the lights some of
the lights that are in the cabin
this I've been exciting excited to try
out perfect why don't you grab the uh
the controller here
the button here okay and go ahead and
and send the command to
control the lights
Alexa set the light to Green
and there he goes
you tell me perfect that is amazing you
just I think you just sent the farthest
smart home request to Alexa in history
I'm so excited
and it was quick yeah it was quick yeah
that looks great too nice work
uh so uh we've had a really busy day and
as you can see in our crew timeline we
had to skip over a few things due to uh
you know moving around and testing
certain items but we have some personal
time here and when you're away from your
family for a long time it helps to have
a sense of humor keep your spirits High
it does and having Alexa on board her
personality uh there's some uh comedy
that Alexa could bring do you want to
test that out I sure do all right
why don't you go ahead when you're ready
Alexa tell me a joke
of course
solid gold so that uh about wraps up our
time today uh one of the last things we
have to do is to initiate the Sleep
sequence do you want to issue the last
command to Alexa for the day I
definitely do and she deserves a good
sleep
we all do
Alexa go to sleep mode
and There She Goes
turning off the lights playing some
ambient sounds so that you can have a
nice sleep inside the cabin
that's awesome that's one of the most
useful things Philippe I was so excited
for you to be here today uh thank you so
much I hope you had a great time thank
you so much Justin for showing me
everything that
the team has done I it's incred I can't
wait to meet the engineering crew uh so
the last thing we're going to do is uh
are we able to sign the Whiteboard
before we head out
nope all right we don't have time all
right so why don't you follow me and
we'll go say hi to the engineering team
let's do it all right