start	end	text
11050	13890	Welcome back to Space Security Challenge 2020,
13890	15070	The Final Frontier.
15070	16210	I'm your captain, Jordan.
16210	18210	I'm actually not anybody's captain,
18210	19790	but I can play one on YouTube.
19990	23130	With no game changes to report on in the last hour
23130	24850	and the game infrastructure cooled down
24850	27910	to a less than molten state, as things are a steady state,
27910	29590	we're gonna bring in some of the game organizers
29590	33630	to talk a little bit more about the behind the scenes
33630	35290	and the game infrastructure.
35650	37690	We were gonna call this segment Between Two Jasons
37690	39970	because we've got Jason Williams and Jason Latimer
39970	42110	of Chromulence on the video chat,
42110	43590	but I don't think y'all need to see my face.
43590	45490	So, Jasons, can you hear me?
47710	48730	Yeah, I can hear you.
48730	50170	Excellent, all right, that was Latimer on the right
50170	51830	and we got Jason Williams on the left.
51830	53630	Thanks for joining me, first of all.
53810	54330	I appreciate it.
54330	56770	You guys have been pretty busy, I know, the last few days
56770	59370	and, of course, even before that as well.
59370	60750	Just first, general impressions.
60750	63190	How are you feeling right now about how everything's going?
66270	68350	I think everything's going really well.
69350	70150	Sorry.
70150	72710	All right, I'll direct into one of you specifically
72710	74450	so I don't make you talk over yourself.
74450	77270	Latimer, how are you happy right now with things?
77270	77890	How are you feeling?
77890	79110	I'm happy.
79290	80610	We've had a little bit of a lull
80610	83150	as teams have been working on challenge three and four,
83150	87390	which are the harder challenges from the hacking perspective.
87950	89950	So, we're kind of sitting back and watching
89950	92970	and it's going pretty well today for sure.
93490	96330	So, one of my other questions for you each,
96330	97990	and we'll stick with Latimer since you're going,
97990	100330	was what is your favorite challenge then?
100330	102570	I already revealed, I think three was probably mine.
102570	103610	Do you have a favorite,
103610	104810	either one you worked on or one you didn't?
104810	106930	And if it's a later one, no spoilers, of course,
106930	110130	but feel free to tell us which one you like best.
110610	114630	Yeah, I really liked three a lot and I was super excited.
114630	116510	We gave the team something to work on overnight
117090	118950	and to come back in this morning
118950	121250	and have a couple of solves right away,
121250	122930	that was awesome.
123290	125330	Challenge four is going to be a challenge.
125330	127930	So, I'm hoping that we get some teams
127930	129930	that actually solve that this afternoon.
129930	133430	We're going to, you know, looking at when we give a hint
133430	136490	or two coming up, but yeah, I like challenge four.
136490	137630	I think you guys described to me
137630	138450	that four was probably,
138450	140670	would you say the hardest overall of all the challenges?
140670	141530	That was kind of the impression I got
141530	143250	from talking to the folks that made them all.
143250	146310	So, this is going to be important too.
146470	148290	Certainly for the score in the game,
148670	151230	a lot could happen in these last two solves.
151230	152950	So, this is going to be a big moment.
153890	155250	All right, so Jason Williams, same to you.
155250	157510	Do you have a favorite challenge?
158590	160710	Yeah, I think it's for me, it's going to be challenge four
160710	162830	without trying to give too much away.
162830	164990	As you know, we think this is the hardest challenge
164990	168030	in the game and it exercises a lot of skills
168030	170530	that the teams are going to need to use
170530	171970	in order for them to solve this challenge.
171970	174590	So, I'm really excited to see where they go with it.
174590	176830	And hopefully in the next hour or two,
176830	178470	we get a solve on this one.
178890	179410	Awesome.
179410	182010	Now, I think you each may have some components
182010	184590	of some of these FlatSats that we can see kind of up close
184590	185630	and maybe talk a little bit more.
185630	188570	Jason Williams, just before we went live,
188570	191690	you were showing me one of the boards that you had there.
191690	193310	Do you want to go ahead and talk about that a little bit?
193990	196230	Yeah, so on the FlatSat,
196230	198770	we have our own hardware that we designed.
199270	201410	And it's actually, I'll try to show it to you
201410	202990	if you guys can see it here.
203070	204890	It consists of a carrier board
204890	207210	followed by two boards on top of it.
207210	209050	One of them is a ZX board,
209050	212470	which has on it an FPGA, an Artec 7 FPGA,
212470	214770	which runs two soft core processors.
214770	216250	Then the other one at the bottom here
216250	218210	is the Raspberry Pi Zero.
218210	220410	And this one is running the payload module.
220410	221490	Yes, yep.
221490	223670	And so here you can see the ZX board
223670	226430	and on there is actually two soft core processor,
226430	230190	an MSP430, which we use for running the radio baseband,
230190	234230	and then a Leon 3 processor from Geissler,
234230	236450	which Jason can talk more about
236450	238110	that runs our flight software.
238170	240010	Well, hold on a second though, before we go, Jason,
240010	243550	that MSP430 soft core FPGA sounds a little familiar to me.
243550	245070	I think I see something behind your shoulder.
245070	247610	Was that related to that as well?
247950	250730	Yes, if you can remember the badge service
250730	253010	from 2013 DEF CON,
253010	254970	it's actually the same soft core processor
254970	257730	that was used for that competition.
257890	259770	Yeah, Badger was the name of the challenge
259770	261190	and I remember working on it
261190	262690	and we kind of had an almost solution
262690	264710	and then my team threw our broken solution
264710	266830	and then another team fixed it and got it right.
266830	268390	So we scored more points than that,
268390	269890	but I worked on that during the finals.
269890	270850	I remember that one.
270850	272210	Yeah, that's really cool.
272210	273530	A lot of the code is similar.
273750	274550	That makes sense.
274550	276070	Because you already had this sort of soft core
276070	276830	that you needed to implement
276830	278610	and it was compatible with what you do.
278610	279570	So that makes sense.
279570	279870	Awesome.
279870	284370	Now the Leon processor then, or the payload,
284370	285550	tell me a little bit more about that, Latimer.
285750	287150	What's involved in that one?
287890	293030	Yeah, so we used a Leon 3 soft core that Geissler developed.
293030	294210	It's all open source.
294210	295170	You can go out and get it.
295170	296810	You can go buy an Arctic 7 FPGA
296810	298990	and run your own Leon 3 on it.
300090	302930	And so it's a Spark processor that was developed
302930	305150	in conjunction with European Space Agency.
305150	307590	So this is legit the same kind of processes
307590	309490	that are utilized in space.
309810	312310	So that's why we picked it for the competition.
312630	313650	And then on top of that,
313650	317830	we're running a NASA product called Core Flight Software.
318730	320210	We picked that because
320210	323570	that's a really legitimate flight software.
324310	326070	NASA has been huge in the community
326070	328810	as far as releasing their flight software
328810	333310	that they are updating periodically.
333310	334670	And there's like a number of applications
334670	336090	that they have provided.
336090	338130	And so we use that as a basis.
338410	339650	And on top of that,
339650	341110	we've developed some custom applications
341110	342930	that actually interface with the hardware
342930	344330	that we're using in the game.
344530	346850	So that was our approach there.
346850	348850	Now Latimer, how much would you say
348850	350990	of like the overall system that you've got
350990	352950	from the case to the boards,
352950	353910	to the payload,
353910	355330	all the different modules that are,
355330	357030	how much did you develop?
357030	359130	How much were off the shelf commercial components?
359130	360450	How much were there other vendors involved?
360450	361510	Like what was the sort of breakdown
361510	363370	of the overall system?
364570	366650	Yeah, so on the Flatsat itself,
366650	370490	there's really like two major components,
370490	372450	each with subcomponents.
372750	376070	We had kind of a short timeframe to develop all of this.
376070	378050	So when we met, you know, starting,
378050	380930	we were talking more details in November of last year,
380930	383770	we decided we need something quick that we can do
383770	385670	to get sensors and actuators.
385670	386530	So in order to do that,
386530	388710	we bought an off the shelf training satellite
388710	390710	that provides sun sensors.
390710	391910	It has an IMU.
392070	395330	It provides a gyro and magnetometers.
395710	397790	It has torque rods, just like a real satellite.
397790	399850	It has a reaction wheel, just like a real satellite.
399850	402490	So, you know, that's one of the primary components.
403670	407350	But that training satellite from a game perspective
407350	408690	wasn't really interesting.
408690	410270	It didn't really mimic, you know,
410270	413210	the kind of processors that are running
413210	415830	on like real satellites in space.
415830	418750	So that's where we came up with the CNVH board
418750	420270	that we developed that has, you know,
420270	423830	that Arctic 7 and the Raspberry Pi.
424390	427330	So those are the two kind of primary components
427330	429290	on the flat sat.
429290	432090	And is that where most of the sort of the game occurs,
432090	433810	you know, where the challenge is people interacting
433810	436170	and except is the payload module then a part of that
436170	437450	or that I know we're gonna,
437450	439010	maybe that's coming a little bit later,
439010	441950	but like, where is that gonna get factored in?
442790	444150	That's part of it.
444150	445050	Okay, all right.
445210	448330	Not gonna talk too much about that
448330	450730	cause the team still have some things to figure out there.
450950	452910	But, you know, the intent from the beginning
452910	456590	was to take a picture of the moon.
456590	458010	We've been telling the teams that,
458010	460310	so the Pi is there really to provide an interface
460310	462710	to the camera to allow them to do that.
462770	465630	And we put some interesting things in there
465630	468250	that the teams will soon find out about.
468250	469070	Yeah, that makes sense.
469070	470590	And I don't think anyone is surprised.
470590	472670	They knew the end goal kind of going
472670	474210	and I've definitely seen some chatter from them.
474210	476090	So that shouldn't be too much of a surprise.
476230	476710	That's cool.
476710	478090	One of the other things I, you know,
478090	479310	I've been hearing a lot about this stuff,
479310	480750	but I was involved in a lot of production side.
480750	482570	So I didn't know a lot of these details.
482910	485650	When I first saw the air bearings in real life
485650	487850	and understood, oh wait, that's how that works.
487850	488530	That's what's happening.
488530	489270	That blew me away.
489270	490310	Can you talk a little bit more?
490310	491450	You've got one there.
491750	495030	Tell us about how that works and what's going on.
496130	496690	Yeah.
496690	500910	So the air bearing is like two precision pieces of aluminum.
501750	504250	It really works almost like an air hockey set.
504250	506010	Like we played with when we were kids.
506010	506770	Like a table hockey.
506770	506950	Yeah.
507410	507930	Yeah.
507930	508190	Yeah.
508270	511490	So it has, you know, eight machines
511490	514550	or eight precision holes in it.
514550	517030	And you, you know, we hook an air compressor up to it.
517030	519330	We set it to 10 PSI or so.
519390	523010	And the top plate just floats on top of the air bearing
523010	525730	and the satellites are sitting on top of that.
525910	528550	A lot of work went into actually getting
528550	530090	that to work consistently.
530410	532750	And challenge two, we made the team's point
533310	535470	at the sun for an entire revolution.
535470	538710	And, you know, I've been playing with that for months.
538890	541610	Air compressor in my office running consistently.
541770	544130	So it was neat to see the teams do that too.
544130	545970	And we didn't make it easy for them.
546290	549610	So, so yeah, that's, that's essentially how it works.
549610	549790	Excellent.
549790	552330	Now, Jason Williams, how do you get air then
552330	553530	on a thing that's moving?
553530	554970	You have the carousel spinning around.
554970	557490	What was, I mean, was that like a thing that you designed
557490	559150	or built or bought or how did that work?
560390	563210	So the center of the carousel is not moving
563210	565290	and that's where we have the air hose come in.
565630	567630	And then we have it hooked up to a manifold
567630	570030	that distributes air to each of the teams
570030	571570	on the carousel itself.
571570	573610	And an interesting thing about the carousel is actually
573610	577390	it's driven off of a slew drive, which is somebody
577390	579530	if you're familiar with a solar tracking arrays
579530	582130	the slew drives, what causes this solar tracking arrays
582130	582970	to track the sun.
582970	585850	So we actually got that from China, had it shipped here.
585850	587190	It was kind of difficult to get
587710	589910	but that's what the centerpiece you see in the room there
589910	593890	that's rotating the carousel about 15 minutes rotation per
593890	596430	sorry, 15 minutes per a single rotation.
597590	597950	Awesome.
597950	599890	Well, thank you both for taking some time out
599890	600570	to discuss this.
600570	601150	This was awesome.
601150	603090	I'm sure the audience appreciates it.
603090	605590	We'll let you go back to the game and we'll see our audience
605590	608690	in another hour or so or next update.
608710	609930	Take care.
610470	611330	Thank you.
611330	612130	Thanks.