NASA
has successfully launched three smartphones into space to snap images
of Earth, and the handsets may prove to be the lowest-cost satellites
ever flown into space.
Each smartphone is housed in a standard cubesat structure, measuring
about 4 inches square. The smartphone acts as the satellite’s onboard
computer. Its sensors are used for attitude determination and its camera
for Earth observation.
The smartphones destined to become low-cost satellites rode to space on
Sunday aboard the maiden flight of Orbital Science Corporation’s Antares
rocket from NASA’s Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia.
The trio of “PhoneSats” is operating in orbit, and may prove to be the
lowest-cost satellites ever flown in space. The goal of NASA’s PhoneSat
mission is to determine whether a consumer-grade smartphone can be used
as the main flight avionics of a capable, yet very inexpensive,
satellite.
NASA engineers kept the total cost of the components for the three
prototype satellites in the PhoneSat project between $3,500 and $7,000
by using primarily commercial hardware and keeping the design and
mission objectives to a minimum.
The hardware for this mission is the Google-HTC Nexus One smartphone running the Android operating system.
NASA added items a satellite needs that the smartphones do not have — a
larger, external lithium-ion battery bank and a more powerful radio for
messages it sends from space. The smartphone’s ability to send and
receive calls and text messages has been disabled.