British engineers are planning to put a mobile phone in space. The team at SSTL and the Surrey Space Centre in Guildford want to see if the sophisticated capabilities in today's phones will function in the most challenging environment known.The mobile will run on Google's Android operating system but the exact model has not yet been disclosed.It will be used to control a 30cm-long satellite and take pictures of the Earth in the mission later this year.
In the same week as we discovered that UK growth rates are significantly worse than expected, a small company based in Guildford announced plans to put a mobile-phone powered satellite into orbit. Set against the challenge of not just re-balancing, but re-building our economy, sending a phone into space seems like a piece of technological whimsy.It could, however, be interpreted as something rather more important: a sign that if we are seeking economic inspiration, we could do worse than look to the skies.The one ray of light amidst the gloom of the latest growth figures was the robustness of the UK's manufacturing sector.Accounting for some 12% of all economic output, it has been growing at its fastest rate for 16 years. We are not about to return to an age when Britain was the workshop of the world, of course.But there are future-friendly industries where we can and do lead. Chief amongst these is space.Over the past decade, our domestic space business, which is focussed mainly on telecommunications satellites, has grown at about 10% per year. In other words, at the same rate as China.With global demand for information and connectivity growing rapidly, its not hard to see a buoyant future for this sector.However, the ambition of our space sector goes much further, and here there may be inspiration and opportunities for other parts of UK Plc.
The question for governments over the decades has often boiled down to "make or buy".Making means earnings - from sales, intellectual property and education.Buying means exporting wealth and we must recognise that in years to come, going this route will make the UK a less important global customer, less able to negotiate the best terms, and this will accelerate the downward economic spiral.To avoid this, we must learn to value what we create. We must overcome an institutional fear of failure and short-term focus, whereby investors write their exit strategy first and support plan second.Equally, we should stop bashing the bankers. Engineering and the City can and must work together................
And what of the phone in space?It is a test project, lead by young engineers working for Surrey Satellites, a hugely successful spin-out from The University of Surrey.In their quest to make small-scale satellites ever more accessible and capable, the company has invested its own time and money in an experiment combining engineering know-how with lateral thinking and an entrepreneurial wiliness to take a chance.These examples from space show that Britain need not set, as the upper limit of its aspiration, the goal of merely surviving the next decade.We can grow and even lead, if we capitalise on our evident strengths in innovation, manufacturing and, yes, finance.
I am a researcher at Surrey Space Centre, where this project is based. If anyone has any questions for the team, I can pass them on.
Quote from: peter-b on 10/13/2011 09:19 pmI am a researcher at Surrey Space Centre, where this project is based. If anyone has any questions for the team, I can pass them on.Can you say anything about the "Pulsed Plasma Thrusters"? Impulse, mass, drive power, lifetime, even purpose (rendezvous maneuvering or momentum wheel desaturation)?
The first Strand cubesat currently in development will incorporate a Google Nexus One Android phone. It should launch later this year.The satellite-borne phone will map the Earth with its 5 megapixel camera and conduct a number of scientific and engineering experiments, the most significant of which will be to hand total control of the spacecraft over to the Nexus. That's never been done before.
One of its experiments is called "Scream in Space" and was suggested by Cambridge University students. This will see the Nexus phone play videos of people screaming to test the famous Alien movie poster statement: "In space, no-one can hear you scream". In a vacuum, this is certainly true… but probably only up to a point. It's quite likely the phone's microphone will sense a scream emitted from its speakers if only because they're connected to each other on the same candy bar structure."This is all about finding out whether these newer electronics are suitable for use in space. The way we'll know is if we fly them," says Kenyon."They may not perform well. There are radiation issues, and there are temperature issues to contend with. "There are also power constraints: when your mobile phone runs out of juice, it's easy enough to re-charge it; but in space you're dependent on the solar panels and you cannot be constantly re-charging. The power has to be managed. But that said, the electronics found in consumer devices are incredibly powerful and very, very cheap. If we can show these new chips are useful in space, that's very good for our future technology development."