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Testing Mobile Phones For Controlling Space Missions

Posted by Soulskill on from the droids-in-space dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers in the UK are sending an Android handset into space in order to test whether mobile phone chipsets are robust enough to be be used as the basis for controlling future space missions — greatly reducing the cost and weight of spacecraft electronics. 'Once in space, the phone will be bombarded by cosmic and solar radiation, and experience temperatures that veer between extreme heat and cold. A computer on the ground will check whether the phone is able to operate normally in orbit, and if no problems are found the phone will be used to perform tasks usually carried out by the satellite's main avionics computer.'"

22 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. Oh yes by Renegade+Lisp · · Score: 2

    And the logical next step can only be that in commercial aviation, they will start offloading their avionics to the combined processing power of all the cell phones that happen to be on board. Finally, they are coming to their senses!

    1. Re:Oh yes by Locke2005 · · Score: 2

      Imagine a beowulf cluster of planes full of iPhones!

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  2. Sure, NASA allows them on their flights... by mschaffer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So, when can "us mortals" start using cell phones on airplanes?

    1. Re:Sure, NASA allows them on their flights... by Naatach · · Score: 2

      Never? Please?

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      There may be no "I" in team, but there's also no "F" in way.
    2. Re:Sure, NASA allows them on their flights... by mr1911 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No phones on planes, please.

      With the status quo, I look at you when we are boarding and presume you are an idiot.

      When phones are allowed on planes, after a two hour flight with you chatting away with any moron in your phone book that will listen to you I will know beyond a shadow of a doubt you are an idiot, and be able to list a few dozen reasons why.

      Let's keep the mystery going.

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    3. Re:Sure, NASA allows them on their flights... by kryliss · · Score: 2

      The UK knows about space?

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      --- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
    4. Re:Sure, NASA allows them on their flights... by SuricouRaven · · Score: 2

      The UK's space industry is actually booming right now. The country handles the design, administration and construction of all sorts of space hardware. What we don't do is launch. Simple geometry says that the closer to the equator you are, the more practical launching becomes - that's why the US launch facilities are in Florida, about as far south as you can get on US territory. When the UK needs something launched, we just do it from France.

  3. Reason Why They Aren't Using an IPhone by Ancantus · · Score: 5, Funny

    Their App was rejected from the App store.

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    Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. -- Isaac Asimov
    1. Re:Reason Why They Aren't Using an IPhone by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Funny

      No self respecting robot would use an iPhone

      If you visit your local Starbucks, you will find that you are mistaken.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  4. Smaller and cheaper electronics... by xMrFishx · · Score: 3, Interesting

    are smaller and cheaper. That's basically what it says. "We want to use mass produced stuff because it's dirt cheap and made on smaller scales than this expensive rubbish we keep losing by taking a wrong turn at mars. We don't know if it'll work, so we'll send some into space and see what happens, and it will keep that marketeer who keeps asking us what we're really doing busy. He thinks we're working on the iSat. We're just seeing if space-tronics is snake oil or not."

    1. Re:Smaller and cheaper electronics... by Locke2005 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Also, if reliability is an issue, a voting cluster of hundreds of small, cheap CPUs may be both cheaper and more reliable than a few expensive mil-spec CPUs... especially since MIL-spec are generally 10 years behind state-of-the-art by the time they are approved.

      --
      I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    2. Re:Smaller and cheaper electronics... by confused+one · · Score: 3, Interesting

      True. But one could (theoretically) send 10's or even 100's of cheap systems into space for the cost of 1 high reliability space rated system. When you need the high-rel system, by all means use it; but, don't let it limit you in such a way as to prevent launching clusters of small cheap satellites or robots when that's an acceptable option. There are bound to be cases where that's of benefit.

  5. I hope... by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 2

    ...they sign up for the unlimited roaming, text, data and minutes plan.

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    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  6. Phone will be shielded, says Beeb version by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The great swings in temperature and the harsh radiation found in space require the phone be placed inside the satellite casing to give it some protection. A hole will have to be cut in the side of the casing therefore to allow the phone's camera lens to see out.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12253228

  7. They got source by h00manist · · Score: 2

    Their App was rejected from the App store.

    No kernel source, no space rides.

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    Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
  8. Foursquare by yoblin · · Score: 2

    .. At least not too many people will be competing with you for mayor of the moon

  9. If it had been an iphone ... by hardtofindanick · · Score: 2

    the article would have been titled "iPhones blast into space". It is an Android and suddenly we remember to use the term "mobile device".

  10. NASA got burned on this, literally by DCFusor · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Let a bunch of ignorant college kids try and use COTS stuff in their smaller, faster, cheaper, better plans. Almost to a man, they didn't understand certain really important issues, as in -- things that work fine fanless in air burn up in a heartbeat in a good vacuum from their own power when the only way to lose heat is by radiation -- which doesn't remove much till things get very hot indeed. Even micropower opamp chips die in vacuum. After all, there are such things as one watt incandescent bulbs....that get white hot with one watt input, and some of them aren't even in a vacuum! Ok, spread that heat around a 1 watt cpu, which is bigger -- and it's still above the destruction temperature of a chip -- well above.

    So, unless they customize the boards for conductive heat removal and some temp control extras, it ain't going to fly. It's been done and evidently the UK guys don't know about it (all too common these days) or don't have a clue what that problem is.

    But if they couldn't just buy the parts and make/program their own, they're not smart enough to succeed anyway -- those other problems like bit-glitches caused by radiation and so on will kill them if they don't do a very robust software design with various safeguards and redundancies. Why be stuck with a cel phone circuit board when you could just buy the same parts and add the stuff you really need on the mission all on the same board?

    Back in the day, I worked on some stuff that was going into birds. They made us take this class on "What works and doesn't work in space". It was killer enlightening about what the issues are. Some of it has been obviated by new tech -- for example "no electrolytic caps" -- we have ceramics now that serve fine and are probably in most all new tech. "no potentiometers" "absolute minimum connectors" and an entire other course about how things wind up cold welding together in vacuum and most lubes don't work (including surprisingly, graphite which requires an oxygen layer to be slippery). Things like the tempco monster when using dissimilar materials need extra thought so things don't simply warp or explode at big temperature swings as well.

    So, NASA has been there, and done that, and even they forgot some of the lessons when they pissed off most of their real engineers and substituted young punk academics with no real world experience...

    Here goes history rhyming again.

    --
    Why guess when you can know? Measure!
    1. Re:NASA got burned on this, literally by bughunter · · Score: 2

      Well, just like our economists forgetting the economics lessons of the past 80 to 100 years, now NASA is faced with budget cuts after the resulting spectacular economic failures. So, how does NASA respond? By apparently forgetting the engineering lessons of the past 80 to 100 years. Keyword apparently.

      I've designed build space electronics, from launch vehicles to earth science instrumentation for low earth orbit, to weather and comm satellites for GEO and even cameras for planetary science missions, and I can tell you with certainty that the iPhone will not operate reliably at orbits much higher than ISS, and even there won't operate for very long. Take them to a very rad hard environment, like Jovian orbit, and they won't function at all. NASA knows this. And I doubt they've forgotten it. (Here is a good introduction on radiation effects, and this is a very good site for diving deep into the topic.)

      Rather than assuming that they're idiots, I suspect that either a) they have a very select subset of missions for which they're considering consumer grade mobile phones (e.g., short duration low-inclination LEO missions), or 2) they're intentionally proposing a noncompliant technology for a mission for a reason, such as demonstrating the impossibility of the mission for the proposed price, or perhaps simply in protest of budget cuts.

      I'd put my money on 1) but would not be surprised if 2) were true. I've seen it before.

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      I can see the fnords!
  11. How would that be different than ATT service 2day? by xkr · · Score: 2

    How would that be different than ATT service 2day?

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  12. Color me sceptical by KZigurs · · Score: 2

    So, let's just summarize. They want to give control of (no matter how insignificant) chunks of hardware in space to stuff that:

    - Is designed at best for 60-70*C temp range (+/- 30-40 usually)
    - Is assembled planning for 1atm +/- 0.10atm ish.
    - Has a projected design life of 36 months (or thereabouts, again)
    - Is re-designed every 12-18 months leaving previous designs generally unsupported
    - Is considered and counted to be field-updateable for any more complex implementation
    - Is fab'd/assembled by the lowest bidder

    Sure, why not! Also, let's hope that the failures will end up re-entering and buring out instead of sticking on some kind of weird trajectory contributing to the junk already out there.

  13. WiFi work on space? by michelcultivo · · Score: 2

    Anyone knowns if WiFi works on space?

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