STRaND 1

Spacecraft nº:

UK spacecraft nº: 43

Launch data: Designation  39090 / 13009E Launch date  25 Feb 2013 - 12:31 UT Launch site  Sriharikota, FLP Launch vehicle  PSLV-CA Mission  Technology Earth orbit on Feb 27, 22:27: Perigee / Apogee  772 x 783 km Eccentricity   Inclination  98.63 deg Period  100.4 min

Photo of the STRaND 1 satellite assembled before launch. Credit: SSTL

Spacecraft data:

Description:

• STRaND 1 (Surrey Training Research and Nanosatellite Demonstrator 1), is a nanosatellite containing a smartphone payload. STRaND 1 is the world's first satellite with a smartphone-based computer. Engineers plan to switch on the satellite's Google Nexus One smartphone later in the mission to demonstrate the low-cost, off-the-shelf system can control a satellite in space.
• STRaND-1 is being built in engineer's free time and using advanced commercial off-the-shelf components, which fits perfectly with SSTL's innovation and low-cost philosophies.
• The phone will run on Android's powerful open-source operating system. A powerful computer, built at the Surrey Space Centre, will test the vital statistics of the phone once in space. The computer will check which components of the phone are working normally and will relay images and messages back to Earth via a radio system. Once all the tests are complete, the plan is to switch off the micro computer and the smartphone will be used to operate parts of the satellite.
• STRaND-1 is a 3U cubesat, a project of Surrey Satellite and the Surrey Space Centre. The Surrey Training, Research and Nanosatellite Demonstrator carries a Google Nexus One smartphone as its main avionics, and features plasma thrusters and a water-alcohol thruster. It was built around a standard Google Nexus 1 smartphone running the Android operating system. Also carries WARP DRiVE (Water Alcohol Resistojet Propulsion Deorbit Re-entry Velocity Experiment) and electric Pulsed Plasma Thrusters (PPTs) intended to deorbit the satellite at the end of its useful lifetime.
• Smartphones have flown in space before inside the International Space Station, and the computer from a PDA launched inside two Japanese CubeSats in 2006 and 2008.
  But STRaND 1 will go a step further.
  The Nexus One's Android operating system will take over most of the satellite's control functions, testing the phone's ruggedness in one of the most inhospitable environments imaginable.
• "A smartphone on a satellite like this has never been launched before but our tests have been pretty thorough, subjecting the phone to oven and freezer temperatures, to a vacuum and blasting it with radiation," said Chris Bridges, Surrey's lead engineer on the project. "It has a good chance of working as it should, but you can never make true design evolutions or foster innovation without taking a few risks. STRaND is cool because it allows us to do just that."
  The phone is mounted on a panel inside the satellite, with its camera aligned with a hole to take pictures of Earth.
• STRaND 1 also features what Surrey engineers claim is the first 3D printed component to fly in space.
  Applications installed on the smartphone will help control the satellite, collect scientific data and try to boost interest in space exploration.
• Surrey engineers are already working on a follow-up mission named STRaND 2. It will test the ability of two CubeSats to dock together in orbit using technology from Microsoft Xbox Kinect game controllers providing three-dimensional spatial awareness.
• NASA's answer to STRaND 1, named PhoneSat, will launch this spring. Three PhoneSats, all using Android operating systems, are slated to fly together on the first mission of the Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket.

Mission details:

• Launch delayed from Dec 12, 2012.
• The 145-foot[44.2-m]-tall rocket blasted off on Feb 25, 2013 at 1231 GMT (7:31 a.m. EST) from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on India's east coast, where it was 6:01 p.m. local time.
• PSLV-C20 flew in the core-alone configuration (without strapon boosters) into a 770 x 787 km x 98.6 deg, 1805LT sun-synchronous orbit.
• Soaring 500 miles above Earth, a tiny British satellite Strand 1, built around a commercial smartphone, was calling back to Earth on Tuesday, one day after launching from India.
  But the satellite's biggest test is still to come, when engineers will switch its operating system to the Google Nexus One smartphone at the heart of the 9.4-pound miniature spacecraft.
• It ceased to operate 2013 March before the Smartphone could be activated.

Satellite tracking: