Tags: NASA, Smartphone, Cubesat, Nanosatellite
Publication: RedOrbit.com
Publication Date: 11/15/2012

PhoneSat 1.0 during a high-altitude balloon test. Image credit: NASA

NASA’s PhoneSat project received the Innovation in Aerospace 2012 Popular Science’s Best of What’s New Award. The project is intended to show the possibility of an ordinary person easily building and launching a satellite at a very low cost just using consumer smartphones. It will also demonstrate the capacity of using this type of satellite for educational activities, space commerce and exploration.

NASA built three prototypes called “nanosatellites,” they are four-inch cube satellites that weight around three pounds. Each prototype was built with a total cost of $3,500 using only off-the-shelf hardware.

The takeaway is that regular smartphones offer the capabilities needed for a satellite: fast processors, high-resolution cameras, GPS receivers, multiple radios, various miniature sensors, and flexible operating systems.

The first version, PhoneSat 1.0, is based on HTC’s Nexus One smartphone, which runs on Google’s Android operating system; it works as the satellite’s onboard computer. PhoneSat 1.0 will be capable of sending back digital images of Earth and space to the ground and also to notify on the spacecraft health status.

On a next version, PhoneSat 2.0 will be based on a Samsung Nexus S smarphone, which also runs on Google’s Android OS. This version will also include solar panels for longer missions, a GPS receiver and reaction wheels to control its orientation in space.

A beta version of PhoneSat 2.0 will be launched together with two versions of PhoneSat 1.0 aboard Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Antares rocket scheduled to launch in the upcoming months.

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