Wonder if Apple will sue to get an injunction against the launch. :)
Not unless the satellites are rounded of course :)
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NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites
81–90 of 107 posts
Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites
#82Wonder if Apple will sue to get an injunction against the launch. :)
With all respect, this isn't the kind of comment I've come to expect from HN lot on a serious article like this. It belongs to Verge/TechCrunch/Engadget/Gizmodo, or the the articles about the court ruling (those from yesterday).
Worse. It’s a typical YouTube comment. Utterly devoid of content and insight. Also incredibly dumb.
Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
With all respect, this isn't the kind of comment I've come to expect from HN lot on a serious article like this. It belongs to Verge/TechCrunch/Engadget/Gizmodo, or the the articles about the court ruling (those from yesterday).
Actually the comment had a purpose and was trying to raise awareness. The fact that it made you angry perhaps shows that it worked? Perhaps it might make you reconsider your opinions about your favorite company.
I don't think a comment on HN, of all places, is going to do any raising of awareness of Apple's patent position.
Reddit, Youtube, MSNBC, etc., maybe. HN? C'mon.
Also, to get the comment, you already had to have that awareness. It wouldn't make any sense to someone who doesn't know about the Apple vs. Samsung lawsuit.
Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites
#84Why is it important to make satellites which are cheap to build? Isn't the total cost dominated by the cost of bringing it to orbit anyway?
No, the satellite is usually the expensive part. Also, the reasons for not making launches cheaper has been "why is it important to make launches cheap? Isn't the total cost dominated by the cost of the satellite anyway?" Also, ground processing and all can get very expensive because it requires so many people and clean rooms etc and can be delayed. It depends if you think it's part of the satellite or the launch cos…
It cost's over 20k to launch a Cubesat it often costs far less than that to build them. Build costs and R&D can be hard to separate, but the replacement costs for many generic satellites are often well below the launch costs.
Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites
#85Why is it important to make satellites which are cheap to build? Isn't the total cost dominated by the cost of bringing it to orbit anyway?
Expensive launch encourages expensive satellites. Expensive satellites encourage expensive launch. It's a vicious cycle.
Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites
#86I worked on this project for a few months. We ran everything like a typical agile startup with weekly iterations and a lot of testing "MVPs". Really cool project. Also its all going to be opensourced! http://open.nasa.gov/plan/phonesat/
What was your radiation testing like? My understanding is that there's a lot of skepticism that this thing will run for very long. NASA uses hardened processors to make sure radiation from outside the atmosphere doesn't affect electronics and using an off-the-shelf SoC built on a tight whatever nm processes has never been done before for fears of early mortality.
The only exception I can think of is laptops on the ISS and on the space shuttle, but those were within the shielding of the craft. On top of that, those laptops are hardened against radiation. I believe they took off the shelf Lenovo Thinkpads and added some shielding.
Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites
#87This is exactly what I was thinking about after the Curiosity launch. Space exploration desperately needs to iterate faster, and tiny satellites running commodity hardware/OS designs. Android seems perfect for this, considering how easy it would be to deploy updates as .apk files, develop USB peripherals, etc.. The article doesn't mention anything about radiation hardening, though. Are they just not worried about it,…
By the sounds of things, these are temporary satellites not supposed to last for very long, so the long-term aspects of radiation damage might not be such an issue.
Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
With all respect, this isn't the kind of comment I've come to expect from HN lot on a serious article like this. It belongs to Verge/TechCrunch/Engadget/Gizmodo, or the the articles about the court ruling (those from yesterday).
Fact: In the current tech-landscape it's hard to think about innovative Android-devices launched without anticipating Apple filing anti-competitive lawsuits. You reap what you saw. It's kalled karma. In the tech-sector, Apple's main perception is now largely as the lawsuit-company.
Really? At least in the circles I run in (bay area startups) Apple is perceived as the company everyone blatantly copies.
Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites
#89This is an interesting experiment. I think it creates an opportunity to discuss the whole cost picture. COTS alone will only achieve minor cost reductions relative to the whole enterprise.
Testing costs were orders of magnitude more than the cell phones. They ran tests with Thermal Vac, vibe and shock, and weather balloon. Each test required time at expensive test facilities and hundreds of hours.
Launch and operations will require additional hundreds of hours of labor to prepare and collect data. It will also require time on expensive range assets.
For example, a launch readiness review, where they determine if everything is ready to go, would involve a dozen engineers for a few hours. This meeting alone would cost more than the all the phones they bought to test on the ground and fly.
Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites
#90This is an interesting experiment. I think it creates an opportunity to discuss the whole cost picture. COTS alone will only achieve minor cost reductions relative to the whole enterprise. Testing costs were orders of magnitude more than the cell phones. They ran tests with Thermal Vac, vibe and shock, and weather balloon. Each test required time at expensive test facilities and hundreds of hours. Launch and operatio…
I'm sure it will take a long, gradual process, but I hope that using cheap components will lessen the cost of failure, so we can spend less on testing, too. Now if only we could reduce the cost of launch....