Google sends yet another Nexus S into space
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REsEgrhmMjc]
With the last manned mission to the Space Shuttle, Google announced in a blog post that the company accompanied two Nexus S smartphones to venture into space — for the second time. As seen in the video above, the two devices will remain on the Space Station to help robots perform tasks for astronauts.
A couple of our engineers built an open source sensor logging app that NASA decided was perfect for running diagnostics with the SPHERES. You can download the same app yourself from Android Market. NASA was interested in Android because it’s an open source platform, which makes it easy to customize the software on the phone to meet the specifications required to fly in space and work with the SPHERES. Nexus S was also a good fit because of its various sensors and low-powered, but high-performing, processor.
NASA chose Android because of its open source platform, which is pretty understandable because for the most part NASA is pretty open. Check out the app if you’re interested.