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| NASA's PhoneSat project has won Popular Science's 2012 Best of What's New Award for innovation in aerospace. PhoneSat will demonstrate the ability to launch one of the lowest-cost, easiest-to-build satellites ever flown in space -- capabilities enabled by using off-the-shelf consumer smartphones. [PHOTO: NASA] |
Washington: Three smartphones destined to become low-cost satellites
rode to space Sunday aboard the maiden flight of Orbital Science Corp.'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.
Transmissions from all three PhoneSats have been received at
multiple ground stations on Earth, indicating they are operating normally. The
PhoneSat team at the Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., will
continue to monitor the satellites in the coming days. The satellites are
expected to remain in orbit for as long as two weeks.
"It's always great to see a space technology mission
make it to orbit -- the high frontier is the ultimate testing ground for new
and innovative space technologies of the future," said Michael Gazarik,
NASA's associate administrator for space technology in Washington.
"Smartphones offer a wealth of potential capabilities
for flying small, low-cost, powerful satellites for atmospheric or Earth
science, communications, or other space-born applications. They also may open
space to a whole new generation of commercial, academic and citizen-space
users."
Satellites consisting mainly of the smartphones will send
information about their health via radio back to Earth in an effort to
demonstrate they can work as satellites in space. The spacecraft also will
attempt to take pictures of Earth using their cameras. Amateur radio operators
around the world can participate in the mission by monitoring transmissions and
retrieving image data from the three satellites. Large images will be
transmitted in small chunks and will be reconstructed through a distributed
ground station network.