science

PhoneSat

PhoneSat is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand PhoneSat rather than just read about it. In short: PhoneSat is an ongoing NASA project of building nanosatellites using unmodified consumer-grade off-the-shelf smartphones and Arduino platform and launching them into Low Earth Orbit. This project is part of NASA's Small Spacecraft Technology Program and was started in 2009 at NASA Ames Research Center (Moffett Field, California).

Key takeaways

PhoneSat belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect PhoneSat to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of PhoneSat from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

PhoneSat is an ongoing NASA project of building nanosatellites using unmodified consumer-grade off-the-shelf smartphones and Arduino platform and launching them into Low Earth Orbit. This project is part of NASA's Small Spacecraft Technology Program and was started in 2009 at NASA Ames Research Center (Moffett Field, California). When the project started, a typical smartphone had a faster CPU and more memory than the average satellite, one or two cameras, multiple acceleration and rotation sensors, a compass, a GPS receiver, radios, and a Li-Ion battery, all of which had benefited from significant research and development efforts and economy of scale in the telecommunications industry to reduce cost. The construction cost of the first version of PhoneSat satellite was reported to be US$3,500 and that of the second version was reported to be below US$7,000. The chassis of all of the PhoneSat series is a single standard CubeSat bus and sized 10 cm × 10 cm × 10 cm (around 4 inches per side). Control software and firmware was made open source whenever possible. The PhoneSat project was selected by Popular Science magazine as one of eleven "Best of What's New" in the aerospace category in 2012.

Versions

PhoneSat 1.0 PhoneSat 1.0 uses a Nexus One smartphone (HTC) as the onboard computer running the Android 2.3.3 operating system. This version has no solar panels and runs from energy stored in 12 lithium-ion (Li-Ion) batteries. The basic mission goal of PhoneSat 1.0 was to stay alive 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. To prepare for such a mission, NASA tested PhoneSat 1.0 in various extreme environments, including thermal-vacuum chambers, alpha and beta radiation testing (no neutron testing), vibration and shock tables, sub-orbital rocket flights and high-altitude balloons Two PhoneSat 1.0 satellites, named Graham and Bell, were launched. Graham was the basic PhoneSat 1.0 model. Bell was a PhoneSat 1.0 model with an Iridium transceiver mounted at one end (the Iridium component formed its own space mission, see TechEdSat 2). Graham and Bell were launched into Low Earth Orbit on the maiden flight of the Antares launch vehicle on April 21, 2013, and operated successfully in space for a planned one-week mission, re-entering on April 27, 2013.

PhoneSat 2.0

PhoneSat 2.0 is built with a Nexus S smartphone (Samsung), running the Android 2.3.3 operating system. There is a two-way S band radio added by engineers to communicate with Earth, four Li-ion batteries, solar panels to recharge the batteries, and a GPS receiver. To control satellite orientation, several magnetorquer coils and reaction wheels were added. The Alexander cubesat, also known as PhoneSat 2.0 Beta or PhoneSat v2a, was launched along with Graham and Bell on the Antares launch vehicle in 2013. The reason for the strange simultaneous launch of PhoneSats 1.0 and 2.0 beta is that the PhoneSats 1.0 launches were delayed until 2.0 beta was ready to launch.

PhoneSat 2.4 and PhoneSat 2.5 PhoneSat 2.4 and 2.5, both 1-U cubesats, included a two-way S-band radio, allowing engineers to command the satellite from Earth, and a system to control the orientation of the cubesat in space. Phonesat 2.4 was launched in November 2013 on a Minotaur-1 booster with the Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa)-4 mission. PhoneSat 2.5 was launched on a Falcon-9 on April 18, 2014 on the ELaNa-5 mission.

Follow-on projects The PhoneSat bus was used in several other projects. The follow-on project, Edison Demonstration of Smallsat Networks (EDSN), was an 8-satellite constellation of 1.5-U cubesats based on the PhoneSat 3.0 architecture. However, EDSN did not make orbit, launching on the failed Super Strypi mission in November 2015. KickSat also used PhoneSat architecture. The PhoneSat concept, and most of the team, established a NASA Technology Transfer to create Planet Labs in San Francisco. PhoneSat 3.0 onwards replaced the phone circuit boards with an Intel Edison and continue to be launched as a hosted payload on the TechEdSat series at NASA Ames. The costly S-band radios have been replaced by cheap commercial WiFi dongles, and the faster processing speed allows software experiments such as improved satellite-to-satellite communications architectures for delay tolerant networking, atomic clock timekeeping experiments and on-orbit trajectory prediction, control and targeting necessary for TechEdSat's SPQR exobrake, utilizing the PhoneSat 5.0 avionics on the Intel Edison microprocessor.

Launches

Three NASA PhoneSats were launched aboard the Antares 110 A-ONE rocket at 21 April 2013, 21:00 UTC from MARS LP-0A. Two were PhoneSats 1.0, named Graham and Bell; and one was a PhoneSat 2.0, named Alexander. They were named after Alexander Graham Bell. They have masses of 2.8 pounds (1.25 kg), 2.9 pounds (1.3 kg), and 3.14 pounds (1.426 kg). All three had deorbited on 27 April 2013, according to the PhoneSat team. Several pictures were downloaded from them by radio amateurs and NASA Ames PhoneSat team. PhoneSat 2.4 launched in November 2013 aboard the Minotaur I ORS-3 rocket at 20 November 2013, 01:15 UTC from MARS LP-0B. It re-entered the atmosphere on January 31, 2017 after three years and two months in orbit PhoneSat 2.5 launched on April 18, 2014, 19:25 UTC as a piggyback payload aboard SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket, with orbital decay and subsequent reentry on May 14, 2014.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with PhoneSat

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what PhoneSat claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to PhoneSat before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about PhoneSat ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of PhoneSat

In research: PhoneSat appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses PhoneSat in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: PhoneSat is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics CubeSats, Secondary payloads, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for PhoneSat outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study PhoneSat in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what PhoneSat means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain PhoneSat out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is PhoneSat in simple terms?

Why does PhoneSat matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study PhoneSat?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on PhoneSat.