NASA Ames Makes Payloads Out of Phones and Toys

"Faster, better, cheaper" sounds good in theory, but there's a reason that components are qualified for the harsh environment of space.

Cellphones aren't designed for this; they are assembled consumer products. There are ample components, aubsystems, and boards that are more appropriate for an engineering project. The problem with spacecraft is that the qualification process is too slow. NASA needs to streamline it; the most expensive part of spacecraft qualification is the paperwork. Let NASA work with the universities on better ways to qualify and test new electronic components, and on space qualifying some of the modular components that are already available.

Universities and private groups like AMSAT have tried for years to get the DoD and NASA to change the way that they do this qualification with little success.

AMSAT pioneered flying plastic chips when NASA/DoD said that they would not work in space. AMSAT pioneered using tantalum chips on top and bottom of integrated circuits to dramatically increase their radiation protection. Other packaging level radiation shielding has been used successfully as well, even in high radiation environments like a Molnyia orbit.

It terms of reliability, commercial parts have far surpassed the milspec parts due to the statistics of massive quantities of parts and how the continuous process QA has continued to raise reliability levels.

The problem is that everyone gets scared when push comes to shove and no one gets punished for doing it the old way.

For the love of God, please don't fly hardware you could have bought at Frys, Best Buy, or Radio Shack. It doesn't work very well on research aircraft, so I don't see how it'll work that well in space.

Editor's note: I have held this hardware in my hands. The people working on it know what they are doing. You are basing your comments on a short article written for a wide audience. Anonymous comments on technical issues really do not hold much water.

Commercial parts are reliable only when you keep the temperature under control. They're normally 0 to 70C.

Another problem with commercial parts would be single event upsets. SEUs can cause bit flips or circuit latch ups and would more be a problem with dense memory circuits.

@whyisthat1

See my Tweet image which is our first crack at trying to understand what these phones are capable of in what environments.

Indeed, you raise good points that we are aware of. As you see in the image I linked to, temperature cycling and vacuum are low hanging fruit in terms of what we can easily and cheaply test for. How radiation plays a factor is a serious question and is worth further testing; something we're trying to figure out.

@That Guy

Rest assured, we haven't flown anything from the list of vendors you provided.However, there is preliminary data to suggest that your assumptions may not be entirely correct.

See the activities with the crew at NoiseBridge, where they flew "SpaceBridgeAlpha" with a Google G1 phone to over 100k feet.

Additionally, see the folks who successfully sent up a Pentax K10D digital camera to the similar heights.

Moreover, there are folks that are seriously looking at flying supercheap hardware, such as the TubeSats & the Ultra Light Space Craft.

Building from these and other experiences could indeed transform how we think about accessing space. The possibilities for science and education are endless!

You are 100% correct...the hardest problem with any satellite is the space qualification process and smartphones were not designed for spaceflight.

But what if a bunch of volunteers and students manage to fly a smartphone and get it to work in space? Wouldn't that change the qualification process that makes life so difficult today?

FWIW...NASA is working with students and Universities on these kinds of projects.

Again, you are 100% correct there too :)

Yes...you're right! There are many other volunteer and student groups that are exploring the possibilities with SmartPhones and we have all been surprised at the robustness of these devices.

Is there not an educational value in learning what problems would crop up using these very familiar devices? What if they actually worked, wouldn't that be a game changing event?

Awesome information. I was not really aware of the problem of qualification. Even if off the shelf cell phone hardware would have problems in a space environment, how can it be that the qualification process is 20 years behind. I am not aware of the modifications that would need to be done, but it seems like working on getting this more powerful hardware in spacecraft, or at least advancing the technology built for it would be an important part of our space program. Do other space agencies have this problem?