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Telemetry Made Simple: Rocket Phone Home
UserID 3.14 writes "This article from science daily talks about a communications module that will be strapped to the rockets of a shuttle or other payload delivery vehicle. It can be used to provide constant telemetry by making a cell phone call using the Globalstar Network. Does this mean that if you use a cell phone in space, even there people will ask you to step outside?" See NASA's web page about the Flight Modem, which seems to be very much a work in progress
What it means is that all geeks will be banned from the flight, because they use up too much bandwidth. :)
"We've got to call Mission Control about..."
"No way dude, I just got another frag; yes!"
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Must be because there are no stewardesses to tell you to turn them off.
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Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Just so long as they don't try to WAP-enable the launch vehicles, I think we'll be juuust fine...
This is certainly an interesting application of cell phone technology and the existing cell phone network - NASA's page mentions savings of multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars per launch.
However, it's hard to see what the significance is overall. Satellites have always been able to communicate in via "realtime telemetry", and could hardly function otherwise.
I think the big thing here is simply that it decreases the amount of special instrumentation needed - any comments from the group?
This means 911 location tracking will work in space? Might be good for those space walks gone awry.
//m
Hope they have some good batteries on it. Or do they simply plug it in to the onboard 12V cigarette lighter?
-- Cheer, Cheer, The Red and the White.
Who is correct? At this point, it's difficult to tell. Some detractors would argue that this technology presents an undue intrusion into existing social models. Cell-phone and other long distance communication technology is a revolutionary alterance in the existing capacity of communication; it alters the capacity for travel, communication, and intellectual exchange in ways that our current economic structure and techonological understanding may not be prepared to accomodate. Perhaps glitches in this untested process may condemn cell phones to a footnote in our history.
Supporters, on the other hand, say that these kind of cell phones an important step forward for communications and society. With previous types of cell-phones, not all users could not take advantage of the most important technological benefits gained from modern-day research. Telemetry, they say, opens the proverbial floodgates by bringing this technology out of the laboratories and into the homes of the every-day user.
There is some probably some merit to both viewpoints. Certainly, society as a whole will encounter some friction as it shifts to accomodate the mobility capacity and access provided by cell phones. However, the end result may be worth the infrastructural shifts; existing insular communities may not be as structurally capable as their newer cousin.
Will telemetry sink or swim? The question is still up in the air; with many unique forces and viewpoints at work, we'll likely see many interesting challenges and confrontations for the pioneers in the telecommuncations field. Whatever the final result is, it's sure to give the key players on all sides of the issue a trial by fire.
Yu Suzuki
Yu Suzuki
Deamcast. It's thinking.
I have to wonder if this is really going to be used by NASA for a few reasons well mainly, if you look at the timeline ont he NASA homepage, its about 6 years, and we all know how fast technology changes. 6 years before this is even used? Or did I misread it? Anyways it seems like a cost effective idea but I wonder if anyone knows of more specs on this, e.g.:
GPS receiver; potential other sensors (e.g., accelerometers)
Internet protocol (IP) communications and software tools
GPS is readily available already so unless they're banking on some new hyper technical version, why was this listed? IP communications and software tools... Anyone know of any information on software of specs of the IP side of things, IPv6, v4, what? Also if this comes into play I wonder what will companies like Cisco, and Juniper do in order to capture this market, anyone with links to information like that? It'd be some neat Sunday night reading.
360 degrees of Karma
"Hey, it looks like booster rocket #4 made $500 worth of calls to a 900 line..."
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If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, forget 'em, because man, they're gone. -- Jack
But seriously, this could be very interesting. I am guessing that this means that anyone who gets the number would also be able to call the astronauts on the shuttle ... unless of course our government is smart enough to block such a thing. (Hmm. Wait a second. DAMN!) It was worth a thought, though. Is there anything that the government doesn't control, here? Com'on. THINK! :)
"Does this mean that if you use a cell phone in space, even there people will ask you to step outside?"
Bah. Pointless and corny - I would have taken it out of the article.
No, because in space, no one can hear your cell phone calls.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
I regularly participate in amateur rocket competitions. For telemetry I find it quite simple to attach a Nokia 5100 (with detached Honey Orange faceplate) and wire it to a microprocessor that will send varying volumes in different audible frequency bands to indicate different values, scaled into audible ranges. For example, altitude, airspeed, latitude and longitude (as calculated by GPS and communicated to the uP). I simply record on DAT tape the audio on another cell phone. When I return home I play the audio into my computer as a WAV file, and then run spectrum analysis on it and scale and filter frequency analysis into raw telemetry data that I can then plot. (This is easily done with Matlab).
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Know someone who is stealing cable? Report them!
It can be used to provide constant telemetry by making a cell phone call using the Globalstar Network.
- sea-level.- sea-level, will you accept charges?
May I humbly suggest a cost-saving measure:
Rocket: I'd like to make a collect call please.
Operator: Who may I say is calling?
Rocket: Bob I'm-at-23.494923N-82.293823W-3042.4293-feet-below
Operator: One moment please.
*Somewhere in a control room, a telephone rings*
Chart Plotter: Hello?
Operator: I have a collect call from Bob I'm-at-23.494923N-82.293823W-3042.4293-feet-below
Chart Plotter: Wrong number.
*Chart Plotter hangs up*
Operations Manager: Who was that?
Chart Plotter: The rocket. It's over Cuba.
NO CARRIER
Does this mean you can phone the satellite (for whatever reason)?
Why not use a TCP/IP like protocol for non-critical telemetry if the data rate is low on average ... whatever happened to Teledesic?
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Roaming Charges? oh my loord ...
look at all of those zones that you used during that conversation....
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Sorry to seem like I'm flaming or starting a flamewar, but I haven't seen anyone, or read an article condemning anything in regards to cellular minus the people attempting to halt drivers from speaking on a cell unless they're hands free for obvious reasons. Maybe a link to what your intending to say would help me out here.
Ummm Maybe this should be argued from NASA's standpoint (in relevance to this article), they are the ones who would suffer from intrusion should anyone intercept or hijack one of the sessions. How is NASA, by using this technology snooping on anything, I think your mistaking NASA with NSA.
How did you mangle this connotation from the article at any point. You've confused me to the extent that...
... well...
I just give up you confused the shit out of me their guy.
Privacy you gotta love it
360 degrees of Karma
This is a QUALCOMM GSP-1620 Satellite Data Modem. http://www.qualcomm.com/globalstar/products/packet modem.html
Ground Control to Major Tom
Ground Control to Major Tom
Charge your mobile phone and put your hands free on.
Ground Control to Major Tom
Commencing dialup, cell-phone on
Check phone number and may ATT's love be with you
(spoken)
Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, One, Liftoff
This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You've really been connected
And the papers want to know whose telco you use
Now it's time to use the hands free if you dare
"This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I'm stepping through the door
And my cell phone's floating in a most peculiar way
And your voice sounds very different today
For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
My cell-phone's been cut off
And there's nothing I can do
Though I'm past one hundred thousand miles
I'm feeling very still
And I think my cell-phone knows which tower to use
Tell customer support I love them very much - they know"
Ground Control to Major Tom
Your cell phone's dead, there's something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you....
"Here am I floating round my tin can
Far above the Moon
my cell phone's been cut off
And there's nothing I can do."
In Space, no-one can hear you scream
Oh well, it was good while it lasted.
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.
Wow...just think of the roaming charges on that :-)
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
NASA is willing to strap a cell phone to their tres expensive rockets filled with sensitive custom electronics, but Continental won't let me use my cell phone in the air. "Oh no, it might interfere with the aircraft's avionics. Besides, you can't use cell phones in flight because they'll see too many cells at once from way up there. Use our AirPhone instead, only $19.99/second!"
I'll bet astronauts don't have to put their seat backs and tray tables in their full upright and locked positions, either. Lucky bastards.
Which are small rockets such as surplus Nike SAMs, and the cost of the rocket and launching it can be under $150,000, plus the cost of your experiment. This could be a big savings to people launching sub-orbital experiments. This is mostly what NASA's Wallaps Island does, btw.
Now we are seeing an extension of that same concept into communications. NASA has been using off-the-shelf components for communications components for a long time, but up until now most in-flight communications have come in via the TDRSS satellites. Taking a step toward using a commercial infrastructure instead is a pretty big deal.
-Keslin, the naked nerd girl
-Keslin, the naked nerd girl
than having to run 50,000 miles of Cat 3 cable.
This reminds me of the days when I fiddled with E, F, G and larger engine sizes for model rockets which required FAA licensing and airport control tower approval to launch (well the Fs and Gs did). As part of a project, we had to build a National Rocketry Assoc. certified launcher and radio retrieval system (homing beacon). The homing beacon operated on an unused FM frequency in the area and due to range requirements needed several banks of D-size batteries (you may have needed several watts of power). The difficulty is one like NASA's: trying to fit the peformance requirements while not exceeding payload weight. An automated cell phone which broadcasted GPS location would have been lighter (although not cheaper :)
two years ago would they have based this thing on motorolla's iridium?
But how do you calculate the long distance charges?
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Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Hey sweet, cell phones in space. Now if I could just find a space shuttle with the Executive Assistance of OnStar(tm)!
The engineer(s) who came up with this are the kind of people NASA was looking for with it's "Better, Faster, Cheaper" program. I hope NASA finds more engineers like this.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
Though this is immeasurably cool, judging by the ever rapid price decline of Globalstar's junk bonds, we can expect Iridium style bankruptcy pretty soon. Hell, Globalstar doesn't even have the massive millitary contract that Iridium did to help keep it afloat. That said, Qualcomm is a pretty big player in the wireless industry (much more so than those involved with Iridium), so there is still a chance that GS could stick around. In my opinion, all they really need to do to have a successful sat. phone company would be to create a small, sexy phone that can still work with the sats, analog cell, and digital cell. Though it would be an engineering marvel to make something like that and not give the users cancer after a couple minutes of use, it would certainly sell like nothing before it in the lucrative CEO/CEO-wannabe market. There are many executive types who would want such a phone, but don't like the golf-club-sized antennas on Iridium phones. The other possible customers - those placed outside of normal cell coverage (ships, airplanes, research stations, etc) are either already pleased with Iridium or stayed away because of the high price.
Oh yeah, they also have to make the system, unlike Iridium, work in buildings, or anywhere in the vicinity of a city. With Iridium you have to go through hell to try and make a call with tall buildings around.
It obviously isn't going to be using cellular phone bands, which operate over relatively short distances to a network of ground-based cellular antenna towers, arranged in a hexagonal pattern (cells). The towers are allocated one of seven groups of frequencies, so that each tower is not using the same bandwidth as its 6 nearest neighbors. Transmission power of both the phones and towers must be kept low, so that it doesn't interfere with phones and towers more than 2 cell distances away. The geometry of this arrangement is clearly designed as a 2 dimentional coverage area, only on the surface of the planet. There certainly won't be cellular towers along the way to space.
Reading the NASA article, which avoids the unfortunately cellular analogy, it appears that a great portion of the cost savings is due to using only GPS to track the rocket's position, instead of using radar stations.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
What if the rockets and such don't answer? NASA will never know if the call goes through, because in space, no one can hear you screen...
Cell-satellite beams aren't designed to hand-off subscriber units that are climbing through 100 miles at 9500 mph.
The reliability of this connection is going to suck. Trying to time the launch so you get good cell coverage with minimal handoff will make the old solution the economical one.
--Blair
"Return to your homepages. There's nothing to see here."
FYI, more info on the GSP-1620 Satellite Packet Data Modem that is on the NASA page is here.
Just in case any of you wanna build you own datahaven node in orbit.
--Tim
Your very right about how analog cellular is laid out, however, Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) is laid out somewhat differently. Each base station uses the same exact frequency now as all the others around it. They simply encode the frequency that they are transmitting with a different PN (Psuedo-code Number). It seems to me that by the time NASA actually uses the Satilite technology, the data transfer rates sould be very high and they could integrate the always on high speed connection into the works also.