NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

#1

Post by anigbrowl » Mon, Aug 27, 2012, 3:39 AM UTC

NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites
nasa.gov

Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

#2

Post by digikata » Mon, Aug 27, 2012, 5:08 AM UTC

I wonder how they address radiation hardening and other space specific environmental drivers in this hardware.

Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

#3

Post by est » Mon, Aug 27, 2012, 5:10 AM UTC

digikata wrote: post #2

I wonder how they address radiation hardening and other space specific environmental drivers in this hardware.

Use a shield.

Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

#4

Post by Mythbusters » Mon, Aug 27, 2012, 5:12 AM UTC

From reading the article, there is no reason why Android was chosen specifically. So this experiment could have been done with any modern smartphone out there, they just happen to choose a couple of android phones. Is that right?

Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

#5

Post by greenyoda » Mon, Aug 27, 2012, 5:15 AM UTC

digikata wrote: post #2

I wonder how they address radiation hardening and other space specific environmental drivers in this hardware.

Radiation, such as cosmic rays, would tend to cause transient bit errors in memory that would cause the phone to crash or otherwise stop working. The article mentions that they have a circuit that automatically re-boots the phone when it stops transmitting a signal, so it can recover from these problems.

Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

#6

Post by humbyvaldes » Mon, Aug 27, 2012, 5:18 AM UTC

Not so much with Android, but so much of Nasa's technology has spread to the private sector it's nice to see them using this to their advantage.

Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

#7

Post by maclaren » Mon, Aug 27, 2012, 5:21 AM UTC

Mythbusters wrote: post #4

From reading the article, there is no reason why Android was chosen specifically. So this experiment could have been done with any modern smartphone out there, they just happen to choose a couple of android phones. Is that right?

I imagine the comment about having a "versatile operating system" has something to do with it.

Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

#8

Post by georgemcbay » Mon, Aug 27, 2012, 5:23 AM UTC

Mythbusters wrote: post #4

From reading the article, there is no reason why Android was chosen specifically. So this experiment could have been done with any modern smartphone out there, they just happen to choose a couple of android phones. Is that right?

I've got nothing to do with this project and only know what I read in the linked article but the seemingly obvious reason they'd use Android phones, especially Nexus phones, is that they run on a nearly fully open source stack (minus some binary drivers), so you can go as deep into the internals as you want without resorting to jailbreaking and/or a lot of reverse engineering.

Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

#9

Post by mrj » Mon, Aug 27, 2012, 5:29 AM UTC

I bet they'll be stuck on 2.1 forever.

Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

#10

Post by drivebyacct2 » Mon, Aug 27, 2012, 5:34 AM UTC

Mythbusters wrote: post #4

From reading the article, there is no reason why Android was chosen specifically. So this experiment could have been done with any modern smartphone out there, they just happen to choose a couple of android phones. Is that right?

Between the cheapness and flexibility of Android it makes it a pretty obvious choice, no?