Tags: NASA, Smartphone, Cubesat, Nanosatellite
Publication: Gizmag.com
Publication Date: 05/06/2013

These images of Earth were reconstructed from photos taken by three smartphones in orbit. Image credit: NASA Ames

NASA’s first PhoneSats successfully beamed their first images from space. The satellites, launched on April 21 on board an Orbital Science’s Antares rocket, were all built around a standard cubesat frame about four inches square and use smartphones to snap pictures of the Earth and act as the spacecraft’s avionics for maintaining attitude control. Two of the satellites were made using HTC Nexus Ones, one using a Samsung Nexus S; they all operate using Google’s Android operating system.

The mission, was conceived in 2009, was aimed at proving a cheaper way to build satellites using off-the-shelf components. With cost as a primary concern, the satellites transmitted the images back to Earth in the form of image-data packets that were received by NASA and volunteer amateur radio operators from around the world who sent the packets to the agency.

After five days in space, on April 27, the PhoneSat mission came to an end when the orbits of all three satellites decayed and they burned up in the atmosphere.

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