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Narrator: Popular Science Magazine has named
NASA's PhoneSat project as a winner in the
Aerospace category of its 2012
Best of What's New Awards.
The awards, now in their 25th year,
highlight innovations that once seemed impossible,
yet today really exist.
Based at NASA Ames Research Center,
the goal of the PhoneSat project is to lower the cost
of building a space satellite to the point that
almost anyone can do so.
About the size of a coffee mug and weighing less
than 3 pounds, the total cost of the components
for each PhoneSat satellite is about only $3500.
Bruce Yost: The PhoneSat project is looking
at new and unique ways of building small satellites.
For instance, the team used commercial,
off-the-shelf components, which includes a consumer
smartphone to host the software, as the computing
power for the spacecraft.
Narrator: Smartphones today have more than
100 times the computing power of the average
satellite, with fast processors, high-resolution
cameras, GPS receivers and several radios and
sensors built in.
NASA's prototype smartphone satellite, known as
PhoneSat 1-point-0, is built around the HTC Nexus One.
The team also built a more advanced version called
PhoneSat 2-point-0 that has improved software,
more sensors and is powered by Samsung's Nexus S.
Jasper Wolfe: With a whole array of these satellites,
which is really cheap, you can now do a swarm
of satellites that can take measurement points all over
and you can get really accurate models of the
atmosphere and of other scientific data.
Narrator: Both satellites are scheduled to be sent
into space later this year aboard a rocket
launched from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility at
Wallops Island, Virginia.
Each satellite will broadcast a signal every
30 seconds on the amateur UHF band
at 437.425 megahertz.
Anyone around the world can listen for this signal
and upload what they hear to
phonesat-dot-org
(Electronic Sounds of Data) (Musical Tones)