NAIL: Dr. Stevens, Sarah from Melbourne: How long will it take for the results of this mission to become available,
and what do you anticipate that you might find out?
STEVENS: That's a very good question. Since ST5 is made up of a series of advanced technologies all integrated together to provide a new capability,
we use those advanced technologies to actually conduct the mission.
So, as a consequence, once we launch, for example, and we turn on our X-band transponder,
our radio that we use to communicate back and forth between the spacecraft and the ground,
we'll begin to understand how this advanced-technology radio is working in comparison to the way we tested it on the ground.
And likewise, with the other technologies, we'll have similar information right away as we start into the mission.
Now, as far as the constellation operations activities are concerned, as we go through the early phases of the mission,
we'll begin to get data from our magnetometers on the spacecraft and begin to understand
how they are operating as a science constellation, as a single entity.
And that information will be built up over time, and of course,
once we get to the end of the mission, we'll have a full picture of the utility of constellations. The, the final output from this,
from this mission will be a validation report, where all of the technology results will be described and published,
and that will be the way that we provide the information to the community at large.