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Android In Space: STRaND-1 Satellite To Activate Nexus One
An anonymous reader writes "In as little as a few days, the British-made Surrey Training, Research, and Nanosatellite Demonstrator (STRaND-1) satellite will begin transitioning its key systems over to a completely stock Android Nexus One smartphone that's been bolted to the bottom of it. The mission is designed to test the endurance of off-the-shelf consumer hardware, and to validate Android as a viable platform for controlling low-cost spacecraft. STRaND-1 managed to beat NASA's own 'PhoneSat' mission to the punch, which will see a Nexus One and Nexus S launched into space aboard the April test flight of the Orbital Sciences Antares commercial launch vehicle, the prime competitor to SpaceX's Falcon 9."
I'd hate to pay the roaming charges on this.
It's stuck with a 2 year contract
At least it doesn't have to interface with iTunes
WHO FORGOT TO ADD TETHERING TO THE PLAN!?!
etc, etc, etc
This is so ridiculously cool. I'd never have imagined that cellphones would even be considered for such a thing.
Off-the-shelf hardware, though - that would be a bigger deal. It's doomed to failure, but if somehow it could work that would be huge.
Why do you say that? We use COTS hardware pretty much everywhere in our missions. It turns out that the radiation environment isn't really that terrible if you are below the Van Allen belts. Why pay through the nose, both in terms of dollars and in terms of horrendous lead times, for space-qualified parts when commercial, industrial, and automotive parts work just fine?
This mission was fixed years ago, there was no Raspberry Pi back then.
"The onboard computer will monitor the temperature of the phone battery. If it sees it is getting too cold, it will trigger a processor intensive program to run on the mobile phone, which will warm it up."
Next time I'm out on a winter day, I'll just turn on my Live Wallpaper with Conway's Life running on an infinite grid. Instant pocket hard-warmer!
Koans and fables for the software engineer
Heh.. Proof right there that you're not affiliated with a US government agency.
That's right, I'm not, and neither are the developers of STRaND-1. I'm not even American. The world is a big place, not all of it is funded by the US government.
I was at a talk from one of these guys once and from what I remember he said that the amount of things you get with a phone make it attractive. They have a camera, temperature sensor and compass straight off as well as probably more stuff. A Raspberry Pi probably would be better with some more work though.
I care not for your karma and your mod points.
The article mentions that the battery is still installed in the phone. Keep in mind that this is a cubesat and things like temperature control, single event upsets, and outgassing are usually not considered mission critical since these are designed to be short lived amateur satellites in LEO (these sometimes live longer than planned, just no extra expense was made to insure longevity). This is to keep costs low while maintaining the programs original intent of education.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Allow me to be the first Android fanboy to say, "Suck it, IOS fanboys!"