Mobile phone in space – Will it survive up there?

Engineers in Britain are planning to send a cell phone in space for
finding if these gadgets can survive in such challenging environments.
This will be Google Android phone but the authorities haven’t revealed
the name of the model. The engineers will try to use the phone to
control a 30 cm long satellite for taking pictures of Earth and this
mission is scheduled later this year.

Handsets have been previously
flown on high altitude balloons but they haven’t been send in space like
this before. Shaun Kenyon, the project manager said that modern
smartphones are really amazing as they have zippy processors with up to 1
GHz speeds and tons of flash memory too. He is interested to see if a
mobile phone will work up there and if it can be used to control a
satellite.


The engineers are also exploring inexpensive electronic solutions to send the mobile phone in space.
They said that they won’t be taking the device apart and the circuit
boards too won’t be taken out to fix them on the satellite. The mobile
phone in space will be sent as it is. They will also be putting another
camera on the satellite to take a picture of the phone. The OS of the
phone will be important here and the best part about it is that Android is an open source software and hence can be modified according to the preferences.



There will be some kind of satellite casing around the cell phone to
prevent it from harsh radiation and great temperature swings in the
space. There will be a hole cut inside the casing for allowing the
camera lens to see out. The pictures will be sent through the radio link
of the satellite. Initially, the mobile phone in space
will be acting as back up to main computer on spacecraft and later it
will be put in charge. The authorities say that they will be exploiting
the capabilities of the phone to the fullest. The phone will be able to
think and will also have a lot of control.


For precise pointing, the satellite will have advanced navigation,
guidance and controlling systems which will include GPS receiver and
miniature reaction wheels along with pulse plasma thrusters for space
propulsion. It will be interesting to see what a mobile phone in space can do.