Hasta La Gadget!

Your average satellite these days is roughly on par in terms of size with your average living room, give or take, and so naturally the cost of lofting one into orbit is, if you’ll pardon the phrase, sky high. Despite that, many offer less processing power a mobile processor like Snapdragon. The obvious solution? Chuck a smartphone into orbit and revel in the savings. That’s the idea behind the PhoneSat, helped along by the Mavericks Civilian Space Foundation, which strapped a Nexus One into a rocket with 1,000lbs of thrust and threw it up to 28,000 feet to see how it copes with the immense stress of riding into space. Of course, 28,000 feet isn’t quite space (NASA would have run out of astronaut badges long ago), but the G-forces and temperature cycles felt during this short trip are comparable to a one-way voyage to orbit. The first such launch didn’t go so well, with the rocket suffering a ballistic return — coming in like a projectile without a ‘chute. The shattered remains of that are shown above. But, the second flight was rather more successful, and the video results can be seen below — captured by the phone itself.

Update: Matt Reyes, one of the folks behind the launch, wrote in to let us know of another article here on the project, including more details on the history of the team and the various hardware beyond the N1 payload. Matt, along with project members Chris Boshuizen and Will Marshall, are NASA engineers, helped by Ryan Hickman at Google, which probably helps to explain how they were able to get from the photo above to the successful launch below in just one iteration.

[Photo credit: Steve Jurvetson]

Continue reading Nexus One blasts off to 28,000 feet, looks slightly worse for wear (video)

Nexus One blasts off to 28,000 feet, looks slightly worse for wear (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tests, upgrades and final checks are being carried out on the Robonaut 2, the humanoid spacefaring robot that has been in the works since 2007. The baby of NASA and General Motors, this sack of metal and wires has already produced a catalog of 34 new patents and, according to GM, is setting the stage for new safety features in forthcoming generations of its road vehicles. Sensor technology being developed in the R2 could deliver better lane departure warning systems, adaptive cruise control, and more intelligent parking assistance. That’s good news and all, but can we ship it out to the ISS already — we’d rather it be off-world when its instruction set switches from “serve humans” to “serve human meat.”

Continue reading Robonaut 2 enters final preparations before flying off into space

Robonaut 2 enters final preparations before flying off into space originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jul 2010 11:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While many of us are busy debating the relative merits of pocket-sized technology, NASA is mulling over ideas on a much grander scale. Submitted as part of the Administration’s research into advanced aeronautics, the above Lockheed Martin-designed aircraft is just one vision of how air travel might be conducted in the future. It’s a supersonic jet employing an inverted-V engine-under-wing configuration, which apparently helps to significantly reduce the resultant sonic boom. Other than that, we’re only told that “other revolutionary technologies” will provide for the achievement of range, payload and environmental goals. So that snazzy paintjob wasn’t just for show, after all — who’d have guessed?

Supersonic Green Machine sends greetings from the future originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Jun 2010 03:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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To kick off the World Science Festival (WSF), to be held at various venues throughout New York City this week, a full-scale model of the James Webb Space Telescope, the size of a tennis court, was unveiled this morning in Battery Park in lower Manhattan.

The World Science Festival consists of 40 events (talks, performances, readings, and more) in diverse subjects, including some exploring the relationship between science and music, visual art, and faith. They include a gala in Lincoln Center tonight to honor Stephen Hawking, and events featuring luminaries such as neurologist Oliver Sacks, Mars rover project leader Stephen Squyres, SETI researchers Jill Tartar and Seth Shostak, artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky, physicist Kip Thorne, and even some non-science notables such as cartoonist Jules Feiffer and actor Alan Alda. Also, science-oriented street festival will take place next Sunday in Washington Square Park. The first World Science Festival, in 2008, drew 120,000 people to its events.

More about the Webb telescope after the jump.