Google Android Driving Spacecraft with Mobile Phone

In recent years we have seen mobiles used at higher and higher altitudes, but until now, they have never gone into space several hundred kilometres above the planet, but that is exactly what the team at Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) in Guildford want to do.

Their plan is to see if the sophisticated capabilities in today's phones will function in the most challenging environment known to man.  Although we do not yet which handset model will be sent into orbit, we do know that the phone will run on Google's Android operating system.  The hope is that the equipment will be used to control a 30cm-long satellite and take pictures of the Earth during the mission later this year.

Messages and pictures will come back via the satellite's radio link, so the phone won’t be “calling home” in the normal sense.  For the first part of the mission, the mobile will simply act as the back-up to the main computer on the spacecraft.  However, at some point, the phone will actually be put in charge of the craft.

The venture is part of the company's quest to find more inexpensive, off-the-shelf electronics that can be used to lower the cost of its spacecraft designs.