WEBVTT

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Tape recorders used as space-borne mass

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storage devices had a history of being

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heavy and unreliable and requiring

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extensive costly ground testing for

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launch readiness . Utilizing bubble

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memory modules as a building block to

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pave the way for replacing tape systems

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with solid state recorders created a

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technological shift in the aerospace

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industry .

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Buck Rogers , Flash Gordon . Uh , they

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were big when I was a kid and yes , I

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always wanted space . Seeker was

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founded by Ray Anderson and his oldest

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son Scott in 1981 . Their initial SBIR

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contract was to replace tape storage

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for military weather satellites . The

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Colorado family-based company Seeker is

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an acronym for the father and his three

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sons Scott , Eric , Kurt , and Ray

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Anderson . Scott and my uh father Ray

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had the opportunity to start a business

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and then the SBIR program came out and

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they started looking through , you know ,

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a large catalog of opportunities of

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replacing tape recorders in satellites

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prior to switching to a solid state

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recorder all Earth observing and

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planetary satellites had . Tape

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recorders that stored their data and

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they were very difficult to build , you

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can imagine in a zerog environment

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having a tape system that with moving

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parts uh would be problematic . The

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accepted knowledge was that dynamic

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rams wouldn't work in space because of

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the radiation environment . Would flip

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bits . It would upset flip bits from

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ones to zero . Well , the answer is to

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put an error detection and correction

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code on it and correct it

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mathematically , allowing a very

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inexpensive commercial device to be

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used in space . We were able to come up

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with a dynamic RAM recorder , so the

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whole world now uses dynamic RAMs .

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With the help of several small business

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innovation research contracts , Seeker

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became the driving force behind the

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premier producer of solid state

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recorders on the market . It really

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became the foundation of the company's

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growth . It gave us a focused ability

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to develop our reputation in the

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aerospace electronic marketplace .

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Almost all of our product line really

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now helps the Department of Defense and

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all the things that they do to keep us

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safe , um , mostly through data

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processing and imaging . It's about

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getting smaller , you know , getting

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lighter size and weight matters a lot

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in space . People weren't really gonna

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want standalone recorders anymore , but

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data processors and spacecraft control

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systems that are combined and they've

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just invested heavily in our internal

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research and development to keep that

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product line going and make it better

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and better and smaller and more capable .

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With the success of solid state

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recorders or SSRs under its belt , the

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company honed in on its next target on

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board processing systems for space and

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aircraft . Again , Seeker received an

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SBIR contract to fund the development

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of its new line of real-time processors

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that could send data directly to

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facilities on the ground . So we won a

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second SBIR . We've actually won

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several , but another SBIR took forward

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the concept of . On board processing on

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a satellite rather than collecting all

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the data in a solid state recorder and

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sending it to the ground actually bring

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information to the ground and do

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processing on board the satellite so we

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took many of the things we did in a

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solid state recorder power supplies ,

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control boards , IO and applied that to

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becoming a processing company without

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the SBIR program there wouldn't have

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been a secret . Built up to over

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450 or so employees now and I think

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the future has great things in store

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for us . Our product has changed the

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industry and the missions that we go on

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expand human knowledge . We've mapped

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out the . Moon we've orbited Mars . We

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just arrived at Juno . We have

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thousands of deliverables , hundreds of

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which are in space , and every single

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one of those can be traced back to that

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original SBIR contract . In that way

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you could really make the argument that

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SBIR created this company .