Next year, NASA will launch mini satellites into space, one powered by the Nexus One and other by Nexus S. The launch comes as part of the PhoneSat program, which wants to create small, low-cost “nano-satellites.”
Version 1.0 — powered by the original Nexus device — will first go “online” and if proven successful, Nexus S-based version 2.0 will follow with more equipment attached to get additional data from the probe.
Modern smartphones have enough processing power as well as all the sensors required to handle a number of different tasks. Moreover, Android-based devices are open so that NASA engineers can cram their own software inside to get specific measurements done.
According to HTC, even though the Nexus One is a several years old device, it has 100 times more processing power than the average satellite orbiting overhead today.