NASA to launch smartphone-operated nanosatellites.
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[TD][h2]NASA to launch smartphone-operated nanosatellites[/h2][B]NASA is relying on a small team of engineers at its Ames Research Center at California's Moffett Field to develop three nanosatellites operated by smartphones.[/B][/TD]
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[TD]The space agency said it plans to launch the nanosatellites this year. The devices are being built with off-the-shelf hardware, which is reducing the cost of each prototype to $3,500.
Nanosatellites are cube-shaped miniature satellites. They're smaller and lighter than other satellites, measuring about 4 inches and weighing less than 4 pounds.
By going with commercial products, NASA said its engineers will launch the cheapest and easiest-to-build satellites ever to fly in space.
Out-of-the-box "smartphones already offer a wealth of capabilities needed for satellite systems, including fast processors, versatile operating systems, multiple miniature sensors, high-resolution cameras, GPS receivers, and several radios," the agency said online. The agency is using phones running Google's Android operating system.
NASA said it has built two types of smartphone satellites. The nanosatellites are being operated by cellphones, which provide the operating system and the communications capabilities.
The mission of the first, the PhoneSat 1.0, is simply to stay alive in space. NASA said the PhoneSat 1.0, which runs on the HTC Nexus One phone, will take pictures of the Earth and send them back, along with information about its health.
NASA's PhoneSat 2.0 will have a few more capabilities. This nanosatellite will run on the Samsung Nexus S smartphone, and it will include a two-way S-band radio so engineers can control it from Earth. It will also include solar panels to extend its mission duration, and it will include a GPS receiver.
The three satellites - two PhoneSat 1.0s and one PhoneSat 2.0 - are set to launch onboard the Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket, which is expected to lift off from Wallops Island, Va., later this year.
[I](c)2012 Los Angeles Times Distributed by MCT Information Services[/I][/TD]
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[TD][B]SOURCE: [/B][URL]http://phys.org/news/2012-08-nasa-smartphone-operated-nanosatellites.html[/URL][/TD]
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iSat.
would be pretty cool for your average joe to launch his own satellite up and control it
Why would they use smartphones instead of more advanced technology, the OS can crash easily and the sattelite rendered a floating piece of junk of no value.
[QUOTE=Amplar;37493888]would be pretty cool for your average joe to launch his own satellite up and control it[/QUOTE]
and then the chaos would insue
just picturing thousands of satellites colliding in low earth orbit
[QUOTE=Fatfatfatty;37493965]Why would they use smartphones instead of more advanced technology, the OS can crash easily and the sattelite rendered a floating piece of junk of no value.[/QUOTE]
The point is to make them small and cheap.
[QUOTE=Fatfatfatty;37493965]Why would they use smartphones instead of more advanced technology, the OS can crash easily and the sattelite rendered a floating piece of junk of no value.[/QUOTE]
Easy and cheap to make, plus low weight so they can be sent up much cheaper too
Plus, i don't think the satellites are running the normal OS, Nasa probably has something other running them
[editline]1st September 2012[/editline]
Too slow :(
[QUOTE=Amplar;37493888]would be pretty cool for your average joe to launch his own satellite up and control it[/QUOTE]If everyone did that, there would be a shitload of space junk.
[QUOTE=RoboChimp;37494046]If everyone did that, there would be a shitload of space junk.[/QUOTE]
There already is a shitload of spacejunk
[QUOTE=FingerSpazem;37494065]There already is a shitload of spacejunk[/QUOTE]
Then it would be upgraded to the imperial fucktonne of spacejunk
[QUOTE=Fatfatfatty;37493965]Why would they use smartphones instead of more advanced technology, the OS can crash easily and the sattelite rendered a floating piece of junk of no value.[/QUOTE]
[quote]The devices are being built with off-the-shelf [i]hardware[/i][/quote]
[QUOTE=Fatfatfatty;37493965]Why would they use smartphones instead of more advanced technology, the OS can crash easily and the sattelite rendered a floating piece of junk of no value.[/QUOTE]
I'm sure they put in an additional system that lets them restore it from a distance.
$3500 for a satellite seems damn cheap.
[QUOTE=bassie12;37494086]I'm sure they put in an additional system that lets them restore it from a distance.
$3500 for a satellite seems damn cheap.[/QUOTE]
I hope I can afford a satellite someday. :v:
So, there is an app for that
I'd hate to end up passing close by one of these, with regular spacecraft you've got one big chunk of metal and plastic to avoid, with these you've got a bunch of much harder to see bit of metal and plastic, it'd be like orbital buckshot coming at you.
[QUOTE=Rents;37495753]I'd hate to end up passing close by one of these, with regular spacecraft you've got one big chunk of metal and plastic to avoid, with these you've got a bunch of much harder to see bit of metal and plastic, it'd be like orbital buckshot coming at you.[/QUOTE]
Radar would spot this.
[QUOTE=danharibo;37495806]Radar would spot this.[/QUOTE]
Doesn't mean you can get out of the way, though :v:
[QUOTE=Rents;37495868]Doesn't mean you can get out of the way, though :v:[/QUOTE]
yes it does.
It would be cool if in the future NASA is able to make them into nano satellite/robots that could dock with one another into a big cluster to make a mega satellite. That could have many uses if you think about it. Imagine taking a panoramic photo with 2000 smart phone cameras all combined into one.
[QUOTE=bassie12;37494086]I'm sure they put in an additional system that lets them restore it from a distance.
$3500 for a satellite seems damn cheap.[/QUOTE]
Considering today's sats add at least 3 zeros to that number, yeah thats pretty cheap.
Cool, going to crash mine into the ISS. Maybe hit someone.
[QUOTE=zeromancer;37496726]Cool, going to crash mine into the ISS. Maybe hit someone.[/QUOTE]
it would be like throwing a empty beer can at a metal dumpster.
This would be cool, if it didn't die after 8 orbits. It is based off a smart phone after all.
[QUOTE=zeromancer;37496726]Cool, going to crash mine into the ISS. Maybe hit someone.[/QUOTE]I bet the orbit these satellites will have wont even be closely matched to the ISS and using only RCS (Probably the only thing on these satellites if that even) would be insane
[QUOTE=BreenIsALie;37494031]Plus, i don't think the satellites are running the normal OS, Nasa probably has something other running them[/QUOTE]
They're running Android without all the Google-bits, at least that's what I read somewhere.
I wouldn't be surprised if the software was done with the NDK, they have a single hardware platform to aim for, and the NDK can give more performance if you're doing a task suited for it, and you know what you're doing.
number of spacecraft that use android as a mission-critical OS: 3
number of spacecraft that use iOS as a mission-critical OS: 0
ur turn apple
Why are they called nanosatellites? Do we call anything tiny "nano" these days?
[QUOTE=meppers;37497822]number of spacecraft that use android as a mission-critical OS: 3
number of spacecraft that use iOS as a mission-critical OS: 0
ur turn apple[/QUOTE]iSatellite, complete with a rocket powered by the explosions of android phones
[QUOTE=Van-man;37496890]it would be like throwing a empty beer can at a metal dumpster.[/QUOTE]
At a couple thousand miles per hour.
[QUOTE=Rents;37495753]I'd hate to end up passing close by one of these, with regular spacecraft you've got one big chunk of metal and plastic to avoid, with these you've got a bunch of much harder to see bit of metal and plastic, it'd be like orbital buckshot coming at you.[/QUOTE]
I'm not sure you understand how tough it is to hit something in orbit. You need to have the same apogee, perigee, equatorial inclination LAN, and a million other variables.
There's thousands of pieces of crap in orbit right now, and it rarely hits anything important simply because the chances are so goddamn low.
[QUOTE=Van-man;37496890]it would be like throwing a empty beer can at a metal dumpster.[/QUOTE]
Considering [url=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/SDIO_KEW_Lexan_projectile.jpg]this[/url] was made by a 7 gram object (roughly the same weight as a piece of paper) on a block of aluminium, I wouldn't like having a ~140g smartphone bump into me at 7km/s.
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