NASA'S Phonesat Wins 2012 Popular Science Best of What's New Award

Nov. 14, 2012

David E. Steitz
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1730
david.steitz@nasa.gov

Rachel Hoover
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
650-604-4789
rachel.hoover@nasa.gov


RELEASE: 12-396

NASA'S PHONESAT WINS 2012 POPULAR SCIENCE BEST OF WHAT'S NEW AWARD

WASHINGTON -- NASA's PhoneSat project has won Popular Science's 2012
Best of What's New Award for innovation in aerospace. PhoneSat will
demonstrate the ability to launch one of the lowest-cost,
easiest-to-build satellites ever flown in space -- capabilities
enabled by using off-the-shelf consumer smartphones.

Each year, Popular Science reviews thousands of new products and
innovations, and chooses the top 100 winners across 12 categories for
its annual Best of What's New issue. To win, a product or technology
must represent a significant step forward in its category. All of the
winners will be featured in the December special issue of the
magazine.

"NASA's PhoneSat mission will demonstrate use of small satellites for
space commerce, educational activities and citizen-exploration are
well within the reach of ordinary Americans because of lower cost,
commercially available components," said Michael Gazarik, director of
NASA's Space Technology Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
"Thanks to America's continuing investment in space technology to
enable NASA missions, we've seen space tech brought down and into our
lives here on Earth. With PhoneSat, we're doubling up, and taking
those same great technologies back to space."

NASA's PhoneSat 1.0 satellite has a basic mission goal -- to function
in space for a short period of time, sending back digital imagery of
Earth and space via its camera, while also sending back information
about the satellite's health.

NASA engineers kept the total cost of the components to build each of
the three prototype satellites in the PhoneSat project to $3,500 by
using only commercial-off-the-shelf hardware and establishing minimum
design and mission objectives for the first flight.

Each NASA PhoneSat 'nanosatellite' is a 4-inch cube and weighs three
pounds. NASA's PhoneSat design makes extensive use of an unmodified,
consumer-grade smartphone. Out-of-the-box smartphones offer
capabilities needed for satellites, including fast processors,
versatile operating systems, multiple miniature sensors,
high-resolution cameras, GPS receivers, and several radios.

"NASA PhoneSat engineers are changing the way missions are designed by
rapidly prototyping and incorporating existing commercial
technologies and hardware," said S. Pete Worden, director of NASA's
Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., where a small team of
engineers developed and built PhoneSat. "This approach allows
engineers to see what capabilities commercial technologies can
provide, rather than trying to custom-design technology solutions to
meet set requirements."

NASA's prototype smartphone satellite, known as PhoneSat 1.0, is built
around the Nexus One smartphone made by HTC Corp., which runs
Google's Android operating system. The Nexus One acts as the
spacecraft's onboard computer. Commercial-off-the-shelf parts include
an open-source, micro controller adapted as a watchdog circuit that
monitors the systems and reboots the phone if it stops sending radio
signals.

NASA's PhoneSat 2.0 will lay the foundation for new capabilities for
small-sized satellites, while advancing breakthrough technologies and
decreasing costs of future small spacecraft. PhoneSat 2.0 will be
equipped with an updated Nexus S smartphone made by Samsung
Electronics which runs Google's Android operating system to provide a
faster core processor, avionics and gyroscopes.

PhoneSat 2.0 will supplement the capabilities of PhoneSat 1.0 by
adding solar panels to enable longer-duration missions and a GPS
receiver. In addition, PhoneSat 2.0 also will add magnetorquer coils
-- electro-magnets that interact with Earth's magnetic field -- as
well as reaction wheels to actively control the satellite's
orientation in space.

A beta version of PhoneSat 2.0 will accompany two PhoneSat 1.0
spacecraft aboard the maiden flight of Orbital Sciences Corporation's
Antares rocket from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island,
Va., in the coming months.

The PhoneSat project is a technology demonstration mission funded by
NASA's Small Spacecraft Technology Program, which is managed by
NASA's Space Technology Program. NASA's Space Technology Program is
innovating, developing, testing, and flying technology for use in
NASA's future missions and by the greater aerospace community.

For more information about PhoneSat, visit:

http://go.nasa.gov/ZoNxpg


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