here's perhaps no better example of that "do more with less" mantra than the PhoneSat project, the goal of which is to build the lowest-cost and easiest to assemble satellites ever placed into orbit. To create such a thing, engineers have turned to off-the-shelf consumer gadgets for parts, harnessing the internals of Google's Nexus hardware as the brains of the operation.
"Powered by Android"
They're starting small, however: the mission of PhoneSat 1.0 powered by a Nexus One is merely to stay alive for a short period of time and beam pictures of space back to ground control. All the while, the nanosatellite will be monitoring its own health and keeping NASA scientists informed of any mal-effects space has on its hardware.
"It takes $3,500 to build a PhoneSat"
PhoneSat 2.0 expands on those capabilities thanks to faster hardware. A Nexus S will serve as its core, with other upgrades including a two-way S-band radio (allowing engineers to control the satellite from Earth), solar panels to enable longer flights, and a GPS transponder. Building on PhoneSat's foundation will permit mission designers to more affordably launch satellites for a variety of purposes, according to NASA. Examples include testing new technologies / components for space flight and conducting inexpensive observations of Earth
