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Can Android Revolutionize Spacecraft Design?
An anonymous reader writes "NASA's Ames Research Center is working on a new project designed to drastically cut the cost of launching and operating small satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The project, known as PhoneSat, will see the Android powered Nexus One and Nexus S phones command their very own small scale spacecraft this year in a first of its kind research mission."
Perhaps try Dr Chris Bridges at Surrey Space Centre in the UK?
http://www.sstl.co.uk/divisions/earth-observation-science/science-missions/strand-nanosatellite
No.
Please, do correct me if I'm wrong; but I was under the impression that the overwhelming majority of the cost of doing space work was in launching the things, with the relatively high salary and R&D costs of building sophisticated precision instruments in very short runs.
Is the cost of computing anywhere near that significant(especially in situations where you are willing to skip serious rad-hard gear), to the point where you would be better off using a commodity phone(with screen, consumer-pocket-resistant chassis, more GPU than you need for Quake3, etc.) rather than a slightly more expensive, but by no means all that esoteric, ARM SoC board designed for embedded applications? In the same vein, is there an advantage to using an Android environment(whose virtues lie primarily in UI and 3rd party applications) rather than a standard embedded linux or other OS?
... will see the Android powered Nexus One and Nexus S phones command their very own small scale spacecraft ...
For how long? These are consumer devices. The hardware and software are not flight rated and not radiation hardened.
That said its a really cool hack but hardly something that will radicalize design. Its not like the space program wasn't already on the path of smaller, lighter and less power consuming electronics. Our modern computers and devices are a direct result of space research.
Many Android users have to remove the battery now and then to restart their phones when an offending application completely freezes Android. IMHO, if you need to run a custom (and only) app, it is not worth the hassle. As for the cost of the hardware, there are many cheap SBCs that could do the job running an OS more fit for the job, like Linux or any other free OS, maybe with real-time scheduling and proper GPIO to wire-up a satellite.
My other signature is a car
The spacecraft's battery will die half way through its rated time, a simple grid UI will lag for its input, your spacecraft will get hijacked by malware from the NASA-Store, each spacecraft will have a different version driving costs up, and software updates in space will be at the mercy of At&t and Verizon?!
All I can say is these devices are not built to be radiation tolerant to say nothing of radiation hardened. Keep in mind the laptops (not used for safety critical things) on the ISS have to rebooted daily because of Single Event Upset (SEU)s that lock them up.
There's an app for that.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
We're the Nexus One and One S
Wow. Take that, Siri. Nexus One and One S have advanced to the point where they can troll Slashdot.
Didn't Nokia release a rhomboid phone in 2003? (7600 3G. I'm sure they released one of a similar design for GSM before that as well.)
Didn't they also release a trapezoid phone in 2006? (N-Gage QD).
I'm pretty certain we're going to see a new slew of lawsuits against Samsung if they do this, this time from Finland.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
I guess someone's already building prettier iRocket. With more RAM and way more intuitive interface for space inhabitants.
Man, what can't these amazing phones do?! I mean, steampunk carrot ship designs are a dime a dozen, but Revolutionary War themed Spacecraft? Hell yeah!
Unfurl the solar sails and set a course for the Kaiser Sea of Mars!
1. They use touchpads in 2001.
2. They use PADDs in Star Trek.
3. Apple copies from #1 and #2.
4. Android is used to build real versions of #1 and #2.
5. Apple sues #4.
6. Profit!
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Phonesat 1 will post Instagrammed photos of Earth and tweets about how lonely it is. Phonesat 2 will retweet them.
Do you see what I did there?
If they're using Android, why not a RaspberryPi?
Multitasking: Just Say No
"Your navigation app "Orbiter" was remotely uninstalled, sorry for that, use our new Apple Car Navigation instead".
839*929
Perhaps reality has a Google bias. :)
The Nexus One was made by HTC, so I doubt Samsung got into any trouble for it.
NASA employs great people and okay people, just like other places. They're not magical.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
... Because if that electronics isn't radiation-hardened, it's going to burn out quickly
They don't have to buy them in the US. Other markets will still have access to these smartphones. In the US, your choices will be limited by decisions made in kangaroo courts.
Not that you have much choice in the US anyway. Notice how the rest of the world had quad core phones back in April... Maybe Apple will "invent" quad core phones later this year. I wouldn't hold my breath on it though. They tend to deliver old hardware that's at least a year or two out of date on launch.
Yes if it's plural "androids". We need truly autonomous robotic space vehicles and probes with the intelligence and mobility of an Apollo-era astronaut. ATM our space probes, already remarkable pieces of hardware, don't have the capability to fix themselves, much less build newer copies. The Martians rovers move at a pace that would shame a snail and they take such unimaginative pictures that, had they been taken on Earth, wouldn't merit a second glance on Facebook. As for the satellites above our heads, many can't even reorient themselves if for some reason they wobble or lose their orbit.
I'm pretty certain we're going to see a new slew of lawsuits against Samsung if they do this, this time from Finland.
It won't help. These lawsuits are about protecting America and the American economy. They need these monopolies to survive.
Microsoft was granted a monopoly on computer operating systems, and that monopoly is still being protected decades later despite being immensely damaging to innovation and business around the rest of the world.
Apple will be granted a monopoly on mobile OSs for the same reason. A foreign company like Nokia will be given short shrift.
There's an android phone for kids I've seen that's "mostly" round, and my G'z One phone isn't completely rectangular: http://gzone.jp/
They don't have to buy them in the US. Other markets will still have access to these smartphones.
For the moment maybe.
But Apple is basically following the well trodden path established by the RIAA/MPAA lawyers. They'll use the USA and its government as a base to extend their influence worldwide.
While we probably won't see Kim Dotcom style takedowns of manufacturers in the next few years, we will see raids of black-market phone resellers in countries who've been coerced into whatever the SOPA equivalent will be called.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
A circular phone would be infringing. After all, if you round the corners on a circle enough, it'll turn into a circle (i.e., a circle is a square with round corners). And a square is just a rectangle with equal-length sides. I think a trapezoid or rhomboid is out too; these are just rectangles with two sides angled.
Wouldn't be an issue though I think, as there are no shortage of cheap non-infringing Android phones they could use instead.
It's a non-issue regardless; the recent court decision in Apple's favor won't apply, due to jurisdiction. :p
I'd hate to see someone have to trust their life in an OS that attracts malware like Android does.
Microsoft was granted a monopoly on computer operating systems, and that monopoly is still being protected decades later despite being immensely damaging to innovation and business around the rest of the world.
Actually, knucklehead, Microshaft Winblows was the soggy glue that held the parts together long enough for an incredibly diverse ecosystem to develop; we affectionally refer to this as "the PC."
We wouldn't give a stupid Apple fanboy wankfest a pass if these phones were running iOS, we shouldn't give this a pass because these phones run Android. Quite disappointed to see this on Slashdot.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Actually, knucklehead, the incredibly diverse PC ecosystem (the ISA bus and clean-room reimplementations of the IBM BIOS) was built before version 1 of Windoze was launched (remember - the one that ran on dual-floppy machines). Another layer was added with the VL / PCI bus wars (about Windows 3 and 3.1). Since then (Windows 95 and more recent), the only significant advance in consumer architectures has been the replacement of "Plug'n'Pray" by the USB bus. Which is, of course, not restricted to PC hardware.
What were you doing in the 1980s? Potty training?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
It should be one with unlimited data, and good coverage, at least in outlying areas.
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
...(the ISA bus and clean-room reimplementations of the IBM BIOS) was built before version 1 of Windoze was launched...
I think you might have misunderstood my use of the phrase "incredibly diverse ecosystem." I was hardly referring to the 80's when Compaq took on IBM. Hell, most of the hams and programmers I knew then owned Apple II's and C64's, not PC's.
Rather, I was referring to the mid 90's, when "x86" as a standard took off like a rocket and an astounding number of players hopped onboard what had previously been a far smaller domestic industry.
Q) How many Androids does it take to fly a satellite?
A) Two. One to fly the satellite, and the other to power the robotic finger that dismisses the "Battery Full" notification and relaunch the flight control app whenever the solar panels are temporarily obscured by a shadow.
Not really a joke, but based on my experience using an Android phone as a 24x7 webcam. Every time there is a power glitch, the "Battery Full" notice takes over the screen and foobars the IP Webcam app. The OS just wasn't designed for standalone operation, big surprise.
I suppose NASA will use their own distro that dispenses with things like touch screen control and notifications and such.
As most people know, space is a pretty nasty place to hang out. Between the monstrous temperature extremes, crippling radiation, and risk of impact with all manners of space junk and micro-meteorites, it’s hard enough for a full scale spacecraft to survive, let alone a smartphone. While these risks can be mitigated by adding shielding to separate the internal electronics from the hellish environment outside, this unfortunately adds considerable weight to the vehicle. Added weight means it takes more energy to put the craft into orbit, which in turn means higher costs.
In the case of our intrepid Nexus phones, the issue is being tactfully ignored. As these are test missions, NASA isn’t concerned about the long-term viability of these craft, and only expects them to last a few weeks or months. Due to their low orbits and lack of thrusters to increase their altitude during the mission, the Nexus-powered satellites will be falling back down to Earth within a year anyway. Even if they were built to better withstand the extremes of space, they would still just burn up in the atmosphere before too long.
Assuming the success of this upcoming mission, future smartphone based spacecraft will likely be designed for longer duration missions, with better shielding and redundant systems. But first we need to see if it will even work...
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
There's a watchdog system to reboot the phone in case of a glitch. Not really a problem. Most CubeSats operate the same way, since they don't use rad-hard electronics due to the cost and limited performance.