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NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

nasa.gov

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Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

#91

Post by roedog »

pjungwir wrote: post #90
roedog wrote: post #89

This 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....

Yeah, cost control is a perennial problem. I think it is so hard to solve because, it seems to me, that any solution must address interlocking technical, cultural, commercial, and policy & political concerns all together.

Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

#92

Post by roedog »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #86
StuieK wrote: post #48

I 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 IS…

I'm guessing that the weather balloon got high enough where it might experience some radiation. I'm curious if they experienced any watchdog timer resets during that test flight.

Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

#93

Post by [deleted] »

jcromartie wrote: post #78
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?

What else would they use? It seems pretty obvious to go with Android.

[deleted]

Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

#94

Post by roedog »

jcromartie wrote: post #78
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?

What else would they use? It seems pretty obvious to go with Android.

NASA flies a lot with VxWorks. They could have ported it to the nexus.

Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

#95

Post by cromwellian »

pooriaazimi wrote: post #71
cromwellian wrote: post #35

Wonder 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).

You're right, it was a drive by comment, I'm big enough to admit it. My irritation has been building over software patents for years and it is leaking into a lot of my posts, not always a good thing to have anger cloud your thinking.

I did learn one incredibly useful thing from this thread however, was that Boeing has a patent on specific orbital mechanics, you know, the kinds of stuff people use to write papers about in the scientific realm for centuries for free transmission of knowledge. I suppose the next step is actually patenting scientific discoveries, like publishing a theory of Quantum Gravity via the USPTO instead of via Nature or the physics preprint service.

Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

#96

Post by ConstantineXVI »

roedog wrote: post #94
jcromartie wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else would they use? It seems pretty obvious to go with Android.

NASA flies a lot with VxWorks. They could have ported it to the nexus.

At which point the satellites can no longer be open source. Perhaps more importantly, Android already runs on the Nexus S; VxWorks doesn't. It defeats the purpose of using commodity hardware if you start over from scratch on the software running it.

Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

#97

Post by jerich »

jgrahamc wrote: post #42
simonw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

jgc does that: http://blog.jgc.org/2011/04/gaga-1-flight.html

Yes, and I am currently working on GAGA-2: http://blog.jgc.org/2012/01/gaga-2.html , http://blog.jgc.org/2012/01/gaga-2-distance-rtty-test.html , http://blog.jgc.org/2012/01/gaga-2-mounting-flight-computer.... The vague plan is that GAGA-2 will be all about lots of cameras pointing in all directions. GAGA-3 will be about precision landing probably using a guided parafoil. None of this is about orbit. Orbit == high ve…

Don't sell yourself and other high-altitude-ballooners short—40km is almost halfway to space and is an amazing achievement.

Remember, everyone, space isn't that far away—if they put in a highway, you could drive there in about an hour. It's easy to think about space being very far away from us and untouchable, but it's actually quite close and just out of our reach. Keep reaching, fellow humans.

Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

#98

Post by surgeterrix »

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?

My guess is the same reason ArduSat uses phone hardware.

All the sensors one might want on a Satellite (motions sensors, cameras, magnetic field detection) are all built into phones now. Android (or more to the point Android's Linux kernel) is specifically compiled to be compatible with most of that hardware. So less work for them as opposed to using another version of Linux.

Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

#99

Post by roedog »

ConstantineXVI wrote: post #96
roedog wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NASA flies a lot with VxWorks. They could have ported it to the nexus.

At which point the satellites can no longer be open source. Perhaps more importantly, Android already runs on the Nexus S; VxWorks doesn't. It defeats the purpose of using commodity hardware if you start over from scratch on the software running it.

I agree VxWorks would require additional porting effort. I also think that Android was the right choice for this mission.

I'm not sure I agree with the implied high priority placed on open source. The relative development costs of android, real-time linux, or even a commerical RTOS are noise in the flight software development budget. Reducing the cost is a more important driver to making space more accessible.

The big benefit, if these android cube sats fly successfully, would be to retire a lot of risks - thus opening the door for future programs to fly with android.

Re: NASA to use consumer Android smartphones in new satellites

#100

Post by mturmon »

pfedor wrote: post #11

Why 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?

Space is a unique and unusual place. Usually the stuff that goes up there is also unique and unusual (hyperspectral radiometers, synthetic aperture radars, rovers). So it's expensive to engineer.

The cubesats (this is one) were developed as a way to prototype ideas and to get a larger segment of people involved in space activity. They are squeezed in to other launches. They're a very special case.

The phenomenon of cheaper, experimental missions is fractal. There are technology demonstration missions at many different price points (up to the 100s of millions of dollar range) that may have fairly modest science goals, but they're trying to show that some exotic bit(s) of tech (autonomous landing, laser communications) can work in space.

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