NASA Launches Three Smartphone Satellies into Space

By IndiaTimes | April 24, 2013, 6:00 am IST

Image Courtesy: NASA Satellite
NASA phone satellite

NASA has successfully launched three smartphones into space to snap images of Earth, and the handsets may prove to be the lowest-cost satellites ever flown into space.


The smartphones destined to become low-cost satellites rode to space on Sunday aboard the maiden flight of Orbital Science Corporation's Antares rocket from NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia.



The PhoneSat team at the Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, will continue to monitor the satellites in the coming days. The satellites are expected to remain in orbit for as long as two weeks.


They also may open space to a whole new generation of commercial, academic and citizen-space users," Gazarik said.




NASA engineers kept the total cost of the components for the three prototype satellites in the PhoneSat project between USD 3,500 and USD 7,000 by using primarily commercial hardware and keeping the design and mission objectives to a minimum.


NASA added items a satellite needs that the smartphones do not have - a larger, external lithium-ion battery bank and a more powerful radio for messages it sends from space. The smartphone's ability to send and receive calls and text messages has been disabled.