What's your mission? | Oscar Pozzobon | TEDxBassanoDelGrappa

We all have dreams, ambitions, seemingly unachievable goals. Space missions routinely work with such challenges, and satellite navigation is one of them.

Look for your mission, suggests the space entrepreneur Oscar Pozzobon, and maybe from space you can learn how to turn it into success.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

We all have goals, ambitions, dreams.

Some of us want want to change the world,
some yearn for success;

other simply seek happiness.

Often these dreams,
these goals, these ambitions

seem unrealizable, impossible.

But there's a field

where the seemingly impossible
is the daily challenge.

Look at this photo: have you ever seen it?

Hardly so.

That little dot is us.

This is a picture of the Earth:

it is the farthest photo
ever taken from the Earth so far.

It was taken by NASA's
Voyager One probe, in 1990,

in interstellar space,
beyond the solar system,

six billion kilometers away.

Well, if six billion kilometers

are difficult to grasp, to imagine,

I can tell you that this photo
took more than five hours

to get here to us, on Earth,
at the speed of light.

Voyager One was not a dream, an ambition:

Voyager One was a mission.

A mission planned for ten years.

In every single action, every single note,

every step, every risk, every small action

was planned and managed.

And Voyager One
continues its mission today:

it's been doing so for 42 years today,

and continues to travel into the unknown,
into interstellar space.

But what is a mission?

Well, by definition

it is the fulfillment
of a series of actions

in order to achieve a set goal.

Missions are assigned to us
since we are little:

at one, learning how to walk;

in school, passing exams;

in the job market.

They are assigned to us;

but we rarely assign
a mission to ourselves.

Have you ever wondered
what your mission is

five years from now, for example?

Or what your mission was this morning

when you got up to come here
to TEDxBassanoDelGrappa?

I work in the aerospace industry,
I do missions for a living.

I willll share some now.

2011, Galileo.

I work on it for almost 20 years:
this is the first launch,

with the first two satellites.

Galileo is our European
satellite navigation system.

You all know GPS satellite navigation,

probably for GPS:

you use it in your cell phone

to navigate, or when
you share your positions.

Maybe you do not know, [however],

that the latest generation of cell phones
also support our European system, Galileo.

And you also have the Russian Glonass
and Beidu, the Chinese system.

Galileo sends radio signals.

You already know it:

it sends a radio signal,

the cell phone takes the position
and calculates it.

What you may not know

is that the satellites are positioned
26,000 kilometers away,

and we can calculate the position
with less than one meter of precision.

This is equivalent to taking
twice the diameter of the Earth,

transmitting a radio signal on one side

and carefully measure
the arrival time on the other

with a few nanoseconds of tolerance.

This means a few billionths of a second:

it amazes me every time
I think about it.

I have dedicated almost half of my life

to satellite navigation:

my mission has always been

to work on the safety,
the robustness of these systems.

Think about the importance of security
on applications like Aeronautics,

for example:

when you travel by plane during cruise,

travel, approach to airports,

or when you land in the fog
at 3-400 kilometers per hour,

satellite navigation systems

are one of the main means of positioning.

Or in the world of autonomous navigation:

more and more states allow today
autonomous, driverless vehicles.

In a not so distant future
you will be able to get into your car,

drink a coffee, read a newspaper, sleep

and safely get to your destination.

But there's more to it: in recent years,

a system designed to work here on Earth

has started to be used in space.

The principle is quite simple:
we use satellites, which are in space,

to calculate the position
of another object

in space.

In the Garis mission in 2018,

NASA and ESA left us a challenge

to develop the first combined
Galileo/GPS receiver

to work on the ISS.

The International Space Station, you see,

is as big as a soccer field.

It flies in orbit at an altitude
of 400 kilometers.

It hosts astronauts.

This had never been done before,
and the challenge was taken.

For the first time

United States and Europe
worked together with the two systems:

the American GPS and the European Galileo.

It all seemed quite easy,

until when, at the beginning
of the activity,

we discovered we no longer had
access to the hardware,

to the ground replica
which is that blue object:

this picture was taken
directly from the station.

And we had to rebuild a local replica:

buying parts, integrating
several solutions,

even buying used parts on the Internet.

Then, a few months into the activity,
a component of the radio broke.

We had a "Houston,
we have a problem" moment

because the software on the station
was uploaded from there.

We managed to reprogram the hardware

using a second frequence,
which is available on the satellites.

We worked day and night
to achieve success:

we went out to calculate
the position of the station

and also the orbits, quite accurately.

In the Gareo mission, 2019,

the challenge was to develop
a Galileo GPS receiver

that would work on a NASA rocket

going into space

in less than a minute
and with 18g of acceleration.

18g is 18 times
the acceleration of gravity

you have here on Earth when you fall.

We had two months

to do electronics, software,

test and qualification campaigns.

Within minutes of launch,

the mission control reports an anomaly
on one of our on-board systems.

We had a few seconds
to give the "go / no go" to the mission,

and we managed, through a small
satellite terminal,

to communicate with colleagues
half world away -

we were in November,
in the New Mexico desert -

to give the final go to the mission.

A mission that was a success:
the rocket went into space,

we were able to calculate
the entire trajectory;

a piece was dropped;

the receiver returned
to the ground by parachute

and was recovered by the military.

What's in store for us?

We think that satellite navigation systems

can also be used on the Moon.

Major space agencies are working

to build lunar bases

to build "Gateway",

which will be a space station
orbiting the Moon.

Is it possible dream?

Maybe: certainly, a mission
where we work on every little detail.

A single chip that can

work on the Earth, travel on the rocket,

arrive on the International Space Station,

work during the cislunar transit
to the Moon to the gateway,

work on the gateway

and also on a vehicle
that lands on the lunar ground.

Today, Galileo is operational:
we have 24 satellites.

Garys: mission accomplished;
Gareo: mission accomplished;

Moon: challenge accepted.

Can we take from space some life lessons?

And what is hidden
behind a mission's success?

Passion, first of all.

Love and passion for what you do
is the first key to success.

If you pursue your dreams,
if you really work for your dreams,

you have already won.

Perseverance:

Never, ever give up;

even when you think
you are completely lost,

never give up.

Think plan B, plan C;
bang your head, but never give up.

Knowledge:

we are the books we read,
the people we hang out with.

Quit studying, learning, knowing,
is not an option.

Knowledge is power,

and power as a verb, not only as a noun:

empowering us to do and give more.

There is no mission
when we [should not] return to books

to study and learn and know.

And finally, modesty.

Be aware of your limits,
your strengths, your abilities.

Accept challenges

that allow you to dare
to the limits of the impossible,

but never beyond.

If we really want to change the world,
or simply seek success,

seek happiness.

Never forget passion, perseverance,
knowledge and humility.

Look for your mission, plan your mission,

becasuse nothing else will nudge you.

And energy is the only thing

that will leave a trace
to those after you.

Thank you.

(Applause)