Android in Space Powering Satellites
Date: Thursday, April 25 @ 13:04:09 UTC
Topic:
Last week a new commercial rocket called the Antares was tested at Wallops Island in America. This rocket is primarily intended to be a cargo re-supply spacecraft for the ISS. The test of the rocket was 100% successful. What is less publicised is the secondary payloads. The Antares rocket was carrying three cubesats called Alexander, Graham and Bell. These cubesats are 4 inch cubes and are intended to be low cost experiments for colleges and universities.
The three launched from Antares were special in that these were designed around the Android powered Nexus One. Smartphones come with a wealth of instrumentation built in radios, gyros, GPS, accelerometers etc. This experiment beefed up the radios and the batteries and is intended to determine if small low cost devices can really be building blocks of satellites.
Ben Evans writing for AmericaSpace.com and Wired4Space.com authored the following article (reproduced with permission from AmericaSpace.com):
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