Ok finally we are going to go to Mars.

James Erickson, project manager with the mars exploration rover mission is going to speak to

us about his work and hopefully have some cool pictures to show to us.

I've learned a long time ago to always bring at least one cool picture. Shall we get start.

What I'm hear to talk about is not the mission itself but one of the technologies that we are using to both enable our mission
to get a much better return and laying the groundwork for demonstrating that some infrastructure at Mars is important
not only for the mission you have there but also for planning the missions of the future.

We've actually got two rovers on Mars. They've been there long past there 90 day warranty. One has been running for about 664
Martian days. The other one 643 Martian days and instead of the half kilometer we promised, we are up over 10 time times that amount on both rovers.

And this is basic idea of what they look like. They were delivered to Mars with a crew stage carrying an Aeroshell. Tucked inside the
Aeroshell was a lander, tucked inside the lander was a collapsible, unfoldable rover

that's now running around on Mars at two different locations. It's got lots of scientific instruments on it both in terms of remote sensing to
identify rocks and minerals and instruments, ones that can reach out and touch, identify minerals, determine
what actually on the surface of Mars, alter it, using grinding techniques to actually go inside rocks and see what's in the center. How they have been
altered by water but what we are hear to talk about is actually communications.

Most missions to Mars,

near earth orbit, Jupiter, Saturn, you name it, we actually depend on direct communications from earth to the space craft
and vice versa.

At mars we are innovating a network of,

in essence, communication satellites around Mars to be used by landed missions. We're the first ones to actually use that. The
orbiters that are involved are the MGS, the Odyssey and the Mars Express. So this is an international network that's being but in place.
The antennas that are involved on the rovers are both the high, high expand (inaudible) antenna that's on the right,

the expand low gain antenna, which is the tall post in the middle and hiding in the back on the left of the vehicle itself is
a UHF monopole antenna and that's the relay antenna. Next slide.

Basically, for most missions we've got direct communications with the earth. The illustration would be to the orbiters around Mars,
MGS, Odyessy and Mars Express. Three sites around the world. Deep space network. They both send commands and receive telemetry from
the vehicles.

Same things happens on the surface. We get direct commands from earth to the two rowers.

But we also have the ability to send data up to

the two primary American orbiters, the MGS and Odyssey.

That's actually an extremely valuable capability,

both in terms of the amount of power that's used to do it. As you can imagine it's a lot cheaper in terms of power to send something
straight up to an orbiter that's overhead rather than trying to get it all the way from Mars to Earth.

The same thing is true for Mars Express. We've actually demonstrated the capability both ways to send commands through the
Mars Express to the orbiters and get telemetry from, sorry, from the rover up to Mars Express and back to the European
communication sites and relayed back to our analysis sites on Earth here at the U.S.

And of course that is true for both rovers so as you can tell we've got a lot of communications paths and that in it's self is
valuable in terms of redundancy. When things go wrong, it's nice to have alternatives and how you can talk to the vehicle and how you can hear from it.

I'm going to tell you a little bit about this but I'm probably going to gloss over most of it. The chart right here shows how the original plan for
a particular day was. We're basically going to have both direct to Earth communications, direct from Earth communications and we were going to test out


the relay path from the two rovers up to the orbiters.

After we've been on the surface of Mars for a couple months we realize

it's always more efficient to go through the orbiters. We save power and power is the coin of the realm when you are talking about surface operations.
Basically you're always limited in how much you can do by the electricity generated by the solar panels. If you want to do more
exploration, if you want to drive farther, you've got to find a way so save as much power as you can from other objects and just use it for the
driving or the grinding or the taking of the images everybody wants to see.

Ok, some of the things we did was we changed it to an extended mission plan that

basically started dropping out thins like the no longer talking to the earth on the morning passes.

Next slide.

We

try and use all of the orbiting passes that we can but it all depends on the power. When we are in the middle of summer we get to do a lot
more passes with orbiters. When we get close to the middle of winter and we're just barely surviving, we drop back communications
for the orbiters until we reach the survival stage and just have one pass.

Now, how effective has this been? Right now, we've gotten over 155GB of data from rovers back to earth


and that's all been through the orbiters. There had been a substantial amount that's been simply relayed. Right now we are up in the

high 97 almost 98 percent of the data is through the orbiters rather than relayed to the Earth like a normal space craft would. This is now a technique that
everybody is beginning to use. We have a specific protocol that we use. CCSDS provides standards for us and we
use what we call prox one protocol. It's a space related protocol only. You guys probably don't need to know about it
but it's been very, very successful.

We validate the interoperability between ESA and NASA on this functions and now people are beginning to take advantage of that. As an
example we are now planning on having a remote lander on Mars in the polar region called Phoenix. It's not
even have the capability of sending data to the Earth. It's going to be getting it's command

and sending its data only through the orbiters. They get rid of the hiking antenna, they get rid of the lowing antenna, all they got is that little tiny monopole
and they are only sending data back that route. All their eggs are in that basket but right now they got three different orbiters to choose from so
if there is a failure, they got two other to fall back on. But we are actually trying to drive around on it. We've gone up to the top of a hill where Sperius is
now. We've been able to look on the other side and now we are comparing what we see on the surface, on the ground with the orbital images and we're
planning how to get back down that hill on to the other side and continue the exploration of Mars. So with that, I'll end this now
and let people get on to a few questions.

(Clapping)

I would like to thank all the panelist very much and for keeping it into the time limit. I know technically we are over time already but we'll
have about 5 minutes for questions. If you would like to raise your hands and the microphone can be sent to you and in the mean time
I'm going to use my microphone to ask Predeshiny a question. I'm curious about whether you've had the opportunity to any analysis of
indoor air quality since introducing the new stoves and also new health measures and outcomes.

That is apart of the project. I didn't touch up on it because of the time constraint actually. We are doing on field measurements
right now of indoor air pollution and also we are doing health surveying. Again this part is also it's sort of a separate project
funded by Shell Foundation. We are doing this in collaboration with the U of Liverpool for the health assessment and
UC Berkley for the admission testing. The lab testing is done and it is proven that the devices are reducing emissions.
In the field it depends also on the structure of the house, the various practices that people use, etc. So on field
studies are now going on in various climate zones and all that. So we will have quantifiable data, actually numbers
which show that how much emission reduction that you in another six, seven months or so. Questions, can I keep
asking mine then.

I'm also curious with XNS if you have data on at what point, if you build a building, you're had your returns. So
you've generated enough power over what period of time to have paid off you investment.

Well the concept of return on investment is a metric that's been used in renewable energies for some time and there is
an argument out there now that exists that it's a false premise to try to take a consideration that there is a return on investment
as some point in the future when the reality is that the return on investment is almost immediate now. There is a lot of government sponsored
programs both domestically and internationally that provides lots of credits, matching dollars, things like that. Give you an example

a recently passed energy bill that Congress passed they have some provisions in there where if a buildings efficiency is goes at least
50% above the base line, the government is prepared to match 100%, dollar for dollar. So you take a line item
a budget expense similar to let's say, a glass facade, you apply our power glass product to it, you now turn into an
energy producing and energy saving device. You couple that with better insulation, more efficient elevator motors and
what not in the building. You achieve this 50% baseline, all of a sudden you're return on invest is immediate and in a matter
of fact it is in excess of what your cost would have been otherwise because previously you were spending money on that glass
facade and there was no return. Now that cost has disappeared. So we think there is these trends in Germany and Asia and here
they are starting to grow in the U.S. Please continue to vote in this direction. Urge Congress to continue to increase these incentives
but you know, we think return on investment is something that has the opportunity to be immediate now based on these government sponsored programs.

Question, Jim. When I was listening to Paolo speak and also

John from Fast and you were both involved in search technologies and

I live for making these kinds of introductions and exposures to each other where you say oh we can adapt what you do with our technology
and so forth.

But I wondered how often do you come across

serendipitously another technology that helps enable your technology or you to more likely reach your goals for
your technology. How often does that happen or is it always that you find the solution through a conscious, strategic effort.


I wish from a management standpoint I could tell you it never happens but I'd have to say it's more than likely is greater than 50%
of the time. One of the things, especially with technology, is the organizational

structure you use with your people and how your people communicate and collaborate and that also includes how you
bring in and are willing to work technologies that are outside your normal area of comfort.
In our

particular case it's