Android smartphones are very likely going to power NASA satellites within the year if all goes well! In October, NASA has plans for launching a 10 ounce satellite into space. This is not going to be any larger than a coffee cup and the interesting part is that it will be powered by Android smartphones. The HTC Nexus One and the Samsung Nexus S smartphones which run the Android platform are going to be the on board computers for it.
The satellite is named PhoneSat and is being developed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. This is an effort by the agency as part of the Small Spacecraft Technology program which was designed to improve the functions of small spacecrafts i.e. those that weigh less than 100kg. The satellite that is going to be launched is a nanosatellite according to NASA as it weighs less than 10kg. There are going to be two generations of this satellite, the PhoneSat 1.0 which is going to be powered by the Nexus-One that takes pictures and records its position while the PhoneSat 2.0 is going to add solar panels and a GPS receiver that will allow its control from Earth with a two way radio controller.
The advantages of small satellites such as this one are quite plenty with the major one being its price. Since the electronics on it are all consumer oriented, the overall cost of the launch is not going to be more than $5000 as compared to the $500 million that regular launches cost. The agency has been trying to develop the satellite since 2010 and the PhoneSat has been through high altitude balloon testing. Google is also helping out with the project by assisting in developing a new serial port and a more efficient image processing algorithm.
Though PhoneSat is not going to be the first small satellite to orbit the Earth, it will be quite revolutionary because of the costs. Endeavor had carried three “Sprite” satellites on its last journey that are meant to gather data about solar winds from their station on the International Space Station. PhoneSat satellites could also be sent for research on the sun, tracking of debris as well as observing the Earth from orbit. It is believed that the flexibility and power of Android phones made them suitable for the job.
