Android In Space: STRaND-1 Satellite To Activate Nexus One

An anonymous reader writes "In as little as a few days, the British-made Surrey Training, Research, and Nanosatellite Demonstrator (STRaND-1) satellite will begin transitioning its key systems over to a completely stock Android Nexus One smartphone that's been bolted to the bottom of it. The mission is designed to test the endurance of off-the-shelf consumer hardware, and to validate Android as a viable platform for controlling low-cost spacecraft. STRaND-1 managed to beat NASA's own 'PhoneSat' mission to the punch, which will see a Nexus One and Nexus S launched into space aboard the April test flight of the Orbital Sciences Antares commercial launch vehicle, the prime competitor to SpaceX's Falcon 9."

Re:Sort of pointless

[AikonMGB]

Off-the-shelf hardware, though - that would be a bigger deal. It's doomed to failure, but if somehow it could work that would be huge.

Why do you say that? We use COTS hardware pretty much everywhere in our missions. It turns out that the radiation environment isn't really that terrible if you are below the Van Allen belts. Why pay through the nose, both in terms of dollars and in terms of horrendous lead times, for space-qualified parts when commercial, industrial, and automotive parts work just fine?

Re:Why not use Raspberry Pi? UK innovation.

[joh]

This mission was fixed years ago, there was no Raspberry Pi back then.

Re:Why not use Raspberry Pi? UK innovation.

[Eggbloke]

I was at a talk from one of these guys once and from what I remember he said that the amount of things you get with a phone make it attractive. They have a camera, temperature sensor and compass straight off as well as probably more stuff. A Raspberry Pi probably would be better with some more work though.