(indistinct conversations) (speakers speaks in foreign language) Child: Hello from the children of planet Earth. (mystical music) Man: No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come. Man: Our progress can be measured not only by the extent of our knowledge, but by increasing awareness of all that remains to be discovered. Man: In the 21st century, humans will again leave their home planet for voyages of discovery and exploration. Man: What we find out up there helps us live better lives down here. We'll make steady progress. One mission, one voyage, one landing at a time. Man: Will we respond to the changes of our time with fear or will we face the future with confidence in who we are and what we stand for and the incredible things that we can do together? (bright music) Hello, my name is Antonio Neri, President and CEO Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Thank you for joining us from wherever you are in the world. Today, aboard north of Northrop Grumann Cygnus spacecraft, which is named in honor of late NASA astronaut, Patricia Robinson, the third iteration of HPE's Spaceborne Solution will lift off for the International Space Station. Together with NASA and the ISS National Lab and only possible through HPE and KIOXIA's partnership, we are bringing the most powerful AI and high performance compute capability with the greatest memory capacity to ever go into space. And this significant combination will allow the international scientific community to further explore space and protect and sustain our planet.

Today at Kennedy Space Center, our ongoing multi-year mission of discovery and exploration begins a new chapter. On behalf of HPE, I wish the SS Patricia Robinson well on its journey to the International Space Station. Enjoy in the launch, thank you. Thank you, Antonio. Hello and welcome to the launch of the HPE Spaceborne Computer to the International Space Station. Today, the third iteration of the HPE Spaceborne computer will climb into orbit aboard the Northrop Grumman's Cygnus spacecraft, the SS Patricia Robertson, named in honor of the late NASA astronaut. My name is Alexa Gonzalez and I'm joined today by my friend and colleague, Adrian Kasbergen. It's an exciting day, isn't it? It certainly is. As you noted, today's journey is our third mission to the Space Station. Our first was in 2017, the second in 2021, and now here we are with our third in 2024. The first two were award-winning and extremely successful. All of us at HPE can't wait to see what new discoveries this version of the HPE Spaceborne computer will help unlock. Absolutely. So, hey Adrian, I'm wearing a spacesuit. Why aren't you wearing a spacesuit? But I am. You can see here beside me, we're going to be showing the NASA live feed from the launchpad, so SLC 40 at the Kennedy Space Center. We're going to keep an eye on that throughout our show leading up to liftoff, which is now very short, a few minutes away. Leading up to liftoff, we're going to share some of the background on the program, what we've been and what we will be doing aboard the station orbiting Earth at over 250 miles high and moving at 17,000 miles per hour. So Adrian, the previous HPE Spaceborne computers, they were unique in many ways, but there's something even more special about this one, isn't there? Well, yes, there are basically many special aspects of this system, but this version of Spaceborne is not only bringing to the station again the most powerful computer to ever go into space, but is also shipped with 130 terabytes of storage, the largest amount of computer storage to ever go into space as well. Wow, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's via our partnerships with our friends over at KIOXIA, correct? That is right. And a great friend and supporter of the Spaceborne Program, their CMO Caesar Ichimura. has a quick message for everyone. Let's hear from Caesar-san. Team, please roll that video. Hello KIOXIA and HPE employees and friends. As a part of launch of the NG-20 mission. We're excited to join Hewlett Packard Enterprise with a Spaceborne system 2 that is heading to East National Space Station. We work very closely with HPE and are sending over 132 terabytes of flash-based storage for the scientific experiments to be conducted in space. Together, we're excited to take edge computing to new level through real time processing of tasks in space. Thank you to HPE, NASA, Northrop Grumman, and SpaceX for this opportunity to be part of the history.

We wish all the members of NG-20 team success with the mission to the ISS. So enjoy the launch and let's make some memories in space. And for my Japanese friends and colleagues, (speaker speaks in foreign language) Thank you Mr. Ichimura for the message and to everyone at KIOXIA for their part, for their support of the HPE Spaceborne project. Adrian, our partnership goes way beyond this project though, correct? Oh, absolutely Alexa. Together, we are delivering some of the most capable and high performance AI and ML enabled systems available in the world. We are doing some great stuff with KIOXIA. Outstanding partner. Well, as everyone can see, NASA is giving us some really nice shots of the launch pad. Let's see here. We are T minus, it looks like 15 minutes. Is that correct, Adrian? We seem to be T minus 15 minutes in and so yeah, that's going to be interesting. Let's get on with our program so that we can enjoy the last minutes. Yes, very good. All right, let's go over and see our senior director of our global technical marketing team and Space Technologists and Solutions Group, Mr. Norm Follett, who's at the Kennedy Space Center now. Norm, welcome. How are things out there at the cape? They're getting really, really exciting. So thank you for everyone for joining us today, and we gave you a little glimpse here earlier of the location that I happen to be standing on. You know, I'm at Merrit Island, at Kennedy Space Center. In the background here, we see Launchpad 40. That's where the spacecraft is going to be flying from. This is a very unique mission now. Spaceborne 1 flew on a pure SpaceX rocket. Spaceborne 2 flew on a pure Northrop Grumman rocket. That means the Cygnus spaceship and the rocket system as well. This mission is flying on a hybrid. It's unique. It is flying on a SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket with the Cygnus spacecraft on top of it and so that gives us a whole another dynamic to enjoy today, not only the liftoff, but the return to the pad of the Falcon 9 Rocket. And I think we've got many members of the press here, many dignitaries and VIPs, and everyone's getting really excited as that clock ticks down. That looks so amazing Norm. I know many out there are watching, wish they're right there with you and the Spaceborne team today. We'll check back with you in a few minutes. Adrian, why don't we give our viewers an opportunity to learn a bit more about that Spaceborne project we're working on? Yeah, that's a great idea. Let's take a look at this video that we did in partnership with the ISS National Lab, which really gives a great overview of where we've been and where we're going. Team, roll that tape. At Hewlett Packard Enterprise, our purpose is to advance the way people live and work. Pushing the envelope is part of our DNA. From the early days, David Parker and Bill Hewlett create the technologies to solve some of the world toughest challenges, including space travel. Spaceborne is a collaboration between HPE, NASA, and the International Space Station National Lab. NASA asked us if we could take one of their state-of-the-art, unshielded unmodified compute nodes, and see, A, if we could get it onto a rocket and that it would survive the shake riling roll of launch, B, could it survive the mission up to the International Space Station, and C, for the astronauts install it and it be operated properly? Spaceborne computer was a proof of concept. Can we do this? The answer is yes we can. With Spaceborne Computer-2, we're bringing state-of-the-art, advanced edge computing, as well as AI capabilities to space.

This will allow our space explorers to take the massive amount of data that they collect on the space station and process it there without having to transmit it back down to Earth and process it here. Spaceborne Computer-2 includes systems from HPE called the Edge Line System. These edge line systems are designed, manufactured, and targeted for edge systems, such as in space, the edge of the edge. This also includes factory, ships, trains, airplanes, tanks. HPE will be proven in space and available on Earth taking advantage of those edge line design characteristics in our product. I believe we are leaving the end of the information era. As we leave that era, we enter into the age of insight characterized by data analysis that will generate insights and discoveries not possible today. The purpose of exploration is insight and if we can use state-of-the-art edge computing and AI capabilities to bring about that insight sooner, all of humanity will benefit. I like that video and hearing from our chief scientist on the project, Dr. Mark Fernandez, describe what we're doing and why, it's always inspiring to me. Absolutely. Mark is a great scientist and a great colleague. Well, here we are. Let's check back with the NASA live feed. We're going to see how far we are out from the launch. And now let's check- >> It's pretty close. And we'll check back in with Norm. Norm, what's the latest from the site? Hey, it's getting pretty intense here. I'm actually having to defend the space now. People are trying storm around us. Hey, we have a camera. So a bunch of people are coming out on the lawn here, we're on the press site activity. So that shot you saw earlier of the vertical launch assembly building is now starting to fill up with people. So it's just super exciting. The clock is ticking, but you know, Alexa, this is not my first time at Kennedy Space Center. I think you recall the trip you and I took a couple of years ago here, right? Yeah, I do remember. It was during Covid times. That's correct. We did for our virtual discover event, we did a show here from Kennedy Space Center talking about the Spaceborne program, and during that remote demonstration, if you will, I had a chance to speak with the distinguished Mr. Rick Mastracchio, an absolutely, you know, wonderful guy, a pioneer in space, a retired NASA astronaut that's currently the vice President of business development for Northrop Grumman, again, our partner on this mission. So why don't we go ahead and take a quick look at that conversation. So team, go ahead and roll the tape. So to kick things off, we're really excited to have our good friend Rick Mastracchio join us, Director of Business Development from Northrop Grumman. Rick, welcome. >> Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you for having me, Norm. Yeah, thanks for making the trip. It's great to be here. Yeah, now Rick, obviously by your jacket, you are a real astronaut, an experienced astronaut with many, many space flights behind you. I'm a former NASA astronaut and now working for Northrop Grumman, that's right yeah. So we happen to be standing in front of one of your old trustee (indistinct). Yeah. >> The Atlantis Space shuttle, the real shuttle here. And you flew on at the Mission 106, I believe. Yes, my first space shuttle mission was STS 106 in 2000. One of the very early assembly missions of the International Space Station. We were actually arrived before the first crew moved in, and part of our job was to get the space station ready, install the toilets, get the crew corridors ready, have all the science experiments ready for when the first crew moved in a month later in fall of 2000. And people have been living on board International Space Station ever since. Yeah, and I think it's 20 years. More than 20 years. >> 20 years in November. So I think you were, I mean, you could say you were the last gap there between, You locked the doors and then, you know, the next crew opened it up and we've been there ever since. Yeah, so I was fortunate in that I got to visit the International Space Station before anybody lived there. I went back a few years later and three folks were living there. I went back a few years later and six folks were living there. And then I went back a few years later and I was living there. Yeah. >> So I got to see the whole progression of things. Yeah, and that's pretty unique. Yeah. Again, three shuttle missions, Three shuttle missions plus a Soyuz mission, A Soyuz mission. So you rode the Russian delivery system up there? Yes, nice little vehicle. Very nice. >> Yeah. Was that quite a bit different than- Quite a bit different. And where a Soyuz vehicle is a very small compared to the space shuttle, which is, you know, obviously an incredible vehicle. Yeah. Now in your space shuttle days, I mean you really joined the space program. Well you weren't, I mean, you weren't in the... You were a pilot, you're an engineer. Right. >> So how did you kind of get involved or even, you know, really realize that you could actually be an astronaut? Right. You know, so I grew up in Connecticut, and Connecticut is very far from any NASA centers, so I really didn't even know it was possible to become an astronaut back then. After I got my master's degree, I was living in Connecticut working, and actually the story is, is my wife saw an advertisement in a magazine and I responded to that advertisement. Astronaut wanted, of course now it's all on the internet, but back then it was in a magazine. And so I sent in an application and I was called by NASA not to go down and work as an astronaut, but to come down and work as an engineer. So that's how I started my career at NASA was I worked as an engineer for several years, then I worked in mission control for several, several years before finally getting selected as an astronaut after nine years of trying. That must have been an exciting moment. It was very exciting. Very exciting. Now you kind of had a very specific purpose and you kind of utilized this spacecraft for that purpose. I mean, it was you know, it was purpose built. Yeah, absolutely. >> To do this kind of job. And you mentioned that you're three missions up and you really were one of the people that really worked on assembling the station. Yep. And that's kind of a short list of people. I think on this spacecraft, 207 different astronauts flew of which you were one. >> Yeah. And then again, you flew on the Endeavor as well. I flew on Discovery and Endeavor as well. My three shuttle missions were on three different space shuttles. So I get to go visit all three of those in the various museums. Wow, that's terrific. >> Yeah. So let's just take a moment and let's learn a little bit about Rick's first gig, so to speak, in the assembly of the International Space Station. Narrator: The International Space Station or ISS took many years to become a reality. In 1984, the United States announced a project called Space Station Freedom. Here's some drawings of what the original station might have looked like. It was never actually built in its original form. There were lots of redesigns and its funding was almost completely cut by US Congress. Then in 1993, after several other countries were brought on board, the name was officially changed to the International Space Station. Five years later, construction begins in space. I'll show you the complete construction process, but first let's learn a little bit more about the station. This is the ISS as it looks today. It's mainly used to conduct science experiments that can only be done in space. There's usually six astronauts on board the station. They generally switch out about every six months so that no one spends too much time in space. The station is about the size of an American football field.

It's located just outside the Earth's atmosphere. This is called low Earth orbit. It's not very high up considering that some satellites orbit way out here. The ISS only takes about 92 minutes to orbit the Earth. That's about 28,000 kilometers per hour. Over time, the ISS will slowly lose altitude. If nothing was done, the station would eventually burn up as it reenters the Earth's atmosphere. To prevent this, the station must be periodically reboosted to stay in space. The main countries now participating are United States, Canada, Russia, Japan, and many countries from the European Space Agency. Let's get to know the main parts of the station. The Integrated Trust Structure is kind of like the backbone of the station. It holds the solar arrays to generate electricity, radiator panels, these remove heat from the station, and other equipment and science experiments are also attached.

This part down here contains the pressurized modules, which means the astronauts can live and work in here without a space suit. All of the Russian modules make up the Russian orbital segment. The other side is called the United States Orbital segment. It's made up of modules from the United States, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The different pieces of the station also called modules were built in many locations around the globe. Each module was then launched into space by one of these three rockets, the American space shuttle, the Russian Proton rocket, and the Russian Soyuz rocket. Once in space, it's time to put it all together. This is definitely not your average Lego set. Once construction started, the ISS took a little over a decade before it was considered complete. Man: Two. What a great conversation that you guys had Norm. So can you tell us a little bit more about Rick and what's going on now? Well, I think Rick should be in the Astronaut Hall of Fame, 56 hours out outside assembling, you know, four missions. Just a terrific colleague and he continues to have impact on the space program. But I think, what's our clock? You guys have the clock in front of you? I think we're within about two minutes now of the actual launch. Yes. >> So yeah, let's make sure we have the NASA feed. So there's, and we're all queued up here. There's going to be about a 10 step process that this thing's going to go through. And as I mentioned earlier, because this is a Falcon 9 rocket on with a Cygnus spacecraft, it's going to be a little bit different. So there's two different, two different things. There's going to be a little bit of a space ballet taking place above us as the Cygnus goes up and separates and as the Falcon 9 rocket comes down. So a couple of just a quick steps to look at here. Alexa, what's the time count? What do you guys got? Alexa: 1:36. So what happens? >> 1:36? Alexa: Yeah, what happens after zero? Well, right after zero we have liftoff, right? And then it goes to a point right within the first minute, it's called Max-Q. That's where the maximum pressure, atmospheric pressure is actually on the spacecraft itself. And about the two minute mark, you might see the engines cut off. Now, that's actually by design and that reduces a bit of the stress and then they fire right back up. And then we get into what's called MECO, which is main engine cutoff. So that happens right at about the three minute mark and that's totally normal, that's expected. Then we have stage separation and that's where the first stage and the second stage separate from each other. The second stage then initiates its engine. Now that's only one engine, so it's not going to look like a massive burn compared to the nine engines in the Falcon 9, which is going to be a little bit more dramatic when you see that. And then the ballet begins with the landing of the Falcon 9 rocket as it goes through, what it's called a back burn boost.

And that really just orients itself to get it in the right position for it to fall. And it is literally falling straight down to the Earth. And as it gets a little bit closer, you actually see the first stage landing burn, and then the first stage landing. Now that's going to be taking place to the south of us. (white noise) Man: 15 seconds. T minus 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Ignition. Invisible power, and liftoff. (indistinct) Go Falcon. (white noise) Norm: And there it goes. Announcer: Begin their flight taking aim on the International Space Station. Here we go guys. >> Parking out to the east. Alexa: Whoa, oh, okay. (indistinct) Woman: Interesting. Announcer: At T plus 40 seconds, Falcon 9 has successfully lifted off from space launch complex- This is our 10th mission of the year and second to the International Space station. And we've throttled down our engines in preparation for Max-Q, which is coming up here in a few seconds. This is the largest structural load vehicle will see on a cent. Man: Max-Q. Announcer: Great news, we've passed through Max-Q and are throttling those engines back up. Next up will be five of- Alexa: So I mean, thinking about this and how many different investigations and how many different scientific studies are going to come off of this rocket? It's so impressive to be able to think. I believe there's about 46 that are going to be on here. Announcer: M1D engines on the Falcon 9 first stage will shut down. In order for us to study all of that up at the ISS. Yeah, the load capacity of these rockets is enormous and that means that every flight to the ISS, they can get thousands of pounds of scientific experiments to be performed. Announcer: To have that to land with the boost back burn. Shortly thereafter, the fairing halves will separate and expose the spacecraft to the vacuum of space. Again, those five events coming up in a few seconds. MECO, stage separation, SES one, the boost back burn starting up as well as faring separation. Man: And next should be main engine cutoff. Man: Stage separation confirmed. Norm: We have separation there guys. (crowd applause) You guys got the NASA feed? Alexa: Yes, we're watching live the NASA feed. Adrian: And there is actually a couple of seconds in between your feed and the NASA feed. So we're trying to compare and contrast. Alexa: Yes, between those. Adrian: So to push back just happened according to NASA and we're closing in on faring release. Norm: Okay, so Grace is going to try to see if she can find it from our camera. So as it comes down to the south, which is actually kind of mimicking all the other cameramen out here, they're all seem to be pointing in the specific area. Alexa: They've done this before. Norm: All right, so right now taking place beyond our view is the second stage is fired. I'm sure they're sharing some of that information on the NASA feed. Adrian: Yeah, they're showing a beautiful shot of that second stage firing its engine and it's amazing how detailed that picture is. Announcer: Great call outs that both vehicles are on nominal trajectories.

Some awesome views on your screen, again, on your left hand side is a view from the first stage, on your right hand side is a view from the second stage looking at our MVAC engine. You're watching a live webcast for NG-20, Northrop Grumman's 20th resupply mission to the orbiting laboratory. This is SpaceX's 10th mission for 2024 and the second flight to the International Space Station just this year. You might be interested- Adrian: But you also see pulse burns going on and so it's working its way to orient itself completely vertical to fall in a straight downward direction. Norm: Yeah, and it's coming to landing pad one, that's what they call it, landing pad one. They have a couple of landing pads here or they landed, you know, on, you know, on a ship as we've seen a few times before. But this one's coming back to the cape itself. Adrian: Yeah, and that's one of the more recent developments of SpaceX where initially they always did it on barges in the ocean and now more and more they feel confident to use landing pads for this. Okay. So my impression is that we're now almost completely vertical. Announcer: To make its way back to its landing zone. We've already completed the boost back burn for the vehicle as it oriented itself heading back towards land. Next up will be the entry burn and that's where three of the Merlin engines will reignite. This helps to slow the vehicle down as it reenters the upper parts of the Earth's atmosphere. And then will be followed by the last burn, which is the landing burn. And that's a single engine burn that begins- Adrian: Okay on the NASA feed right now, I am pretty sure I see on the left side of the screen, stage one coming down and every now and again using its bottom engine to break and incite engines to stay appropriately vertical. Compared to previous landings, it seems like everything is going okay. And now we see the downward camera. And again, this is an extremely high resolution camera. We can see the floor of the coast and we can see landing the bottom engine pulsing every couple- Norm: Here it comes, here it comes. Announcer: Looking after- Norm: See if you can get that Grace. So actually Adrian, I think we're seeing two feeds. One from the Cygnus climbing to orbit, and then the one on the left side is the SpaceX rock coming down. Yes. >> Yes. Stage one- >> Yes, your feed is ahead of the NASA feed. Announcer: And you can see that the landing burn has begun for the vehicle. Let's watch as Falcon 9 touches back down on land. Man: Stage two FDS has saved. Man: Stage one landing like deployed. (crowd applause) Stage one landing confirmed. Yeah, so it just made a perfect touchdown on the NASA feed. It's amazing. It was completely centered. It's like the $1 million shot. Yeah. >> Yeah. We have people dancing in the field right now celebrating this great moment. And you know, as I mentioned earlier, this was a unique launch, unique in that it was a combination of partners in that you had, you know, Northrop Grumman, Cygnus spacecraft riding for the first time on top of a Falcon 9 Rocket. There are three such missions scheduled. Adrian earlier you were talking about, you and Alexa were talking about some of the science and some of the things that is actually on that payload. So we are flying with a whole series of scientific investigations that the ISS National Lab is sponsoring and we have positioned the most capable computer and storage system ever to go to space to support that experimentation at the edge. So it's going to be an exciting time. We are going to end up, we'll literally have an unboxing in space, probably an early March, I think is the current schedule no later than I think the first week of March.

And that's when the Spaceborne Computer gets installed back into the Columbus module. Now it's actually in the ceiling of the Columbus module and then we go operational. And Dr. Mark Fernandez as his team once again begin the journey of scientific discovery and exploration 254 miles above the planet Earth at the edge of the edge. Back to you guys in Houston. Okay, great. Well thank you so much Norm. Do we want to roll some of the slides where we're showing some of our sponsors that we've had throughout this entire program? Norm: So first of all, we did, you know, we've shared a lot about KIOXIA, very excited to have them along. I want to give a little bit of a thank you to the Intel team. They've been supportive as we've gone through the process as well. And then of course our partners with what we're doing with Northrop Grumman and really the ISS National Lab and NASA. And there's going to be a variety of partnerships and investigations that are really going to emerge. We also have some, you know, in space experimentation we're going to do with a company, our new company friends, a company called Astrolab that we're also pushing the envelope on some other ideas and other notions with them as well. But if we could pull up a slide, I want to give a major shout out to the HPE Spacebornee team. This is a core group of people that have been working on this project since about seven of 'em, about 2017, a few of us have come on board a little bit later. A lot of it is volunteerism and support from their managers to allow them to peel off at periodic moments in time and do this very special and incredible work.

So they should be, they and their families members past, present, and perhaps you, a team member in the future should all be very proud of this moment for Hewlett Packard Enterprise. So with that, I'm going to be signing off. This is Norm Follett from Kennedy Space Center and as they say in the air, have a good day. Thanks so much for joining me. Alexa, Adrian, back to you. Norm, thank you so much and to my good friend Adrian as well. I really appreciate you being here. Thank you to everyone for joining us. We're going to take off as well, but as we close the show, let's take everyone on one more peak of the ISS National Lab video that does a great job of summarizing what we're going to be doing up for the next years up on the Space Station. On behalf of everyone at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, thank you for joining us today and stay tuned for updates on this exciting program. This is HPE Houston signing off. At Hewlett Packard Enterprise, our purpose is to advance the way people live and work. Pushing the envelope is part of our DNA. From the early days, David Packard and Bill Hewlett created technologies to solve some of the world toughest challenges, including space travel. Spaceborne is a collaboration between HPE, NASA, and the International Space Station National Lab. NASA asked us if we could take one of their state-of-the-art unshielded unmodified compute nodes, and see A, if we could get it onto a rocket and that it would survive the shake riling roll of launch, B, could it survive the mission up to the International Space Station, and C, could the astronauts install it and it be operated properly? Spaceborne computer was a proof of concept. Can we do this? The answer is yes we can. With Spaceborne Computer-2, we're bringing state-of-the-art, advanced edge computing, as well as AI capabilities to space.

This will allow our space explorers to take the massive amount of data that they collect on the space station and process it there without having to transmit it back down to Earth and process it here. Spaceborne Computer-2 includes systems from HPE called the Edge Line System. These edge line systems are designed, manufactured, and targeted for edge systems, such as in space, the edge of the edge. This also includes factory, ships, trains, airplanes, tanks. HPE will be proven in space and available on Earth, taking advantage of those edge line design characteristics in our product. I believe we are leaving the end of the information era. As we leave that era, we enter into the age of insight characterized by data analysis that will generate insights and discoveries not possible today. The purpose of exploration is insight. And if we can use state-of-the-art edge computing, and AI capabilities to bring about that insight sooner, all of humanity will benefit.