Mobile phone in space project to feature on BBC’s Stargazing Live show
Tuesday 8 January 2013
The University’s Surrey Space Centre is due to feature in the prime time BBC show Stargazing Live hosted by Professor Brian Cox.
The show on Wednesday January 9 is due to include a short film about the STRaND 1 project to send a mobile phone into space to demonstrate the advantages of small off the shelf technology in the development of future satellite missions. As this is a live show this is subject to variation and broadcast can not be guaranteed.
The project is a joint effort between the university and the world’s leading small satellite firm SSTL and is spearheaded by the University’s Dr Chris Bridges.
The STRaND (Surrey Training, Research and Nanosatellite Demonstrator) programme’s first project called STRaND-1 is near completion. Just one of the elements that the system will test out is four Apps designed after a competition to find interesting suggestions from space enthusiast across the UK.
One of the four chosen is to test the theory ‘in space no one can hear you scream’ - made popular in the 1979 classic science fiction film ‘Alien’. The ‘Scream in Space!’ application will make full use of the smartphone’s speakers.
Stargazing LIVE will be broadcast over three nights from January 8 to 10 on BBC2.
Professor Brian Cox and Dara O Briain will host the show from the Jodrell Bank Observatory.
See the BBC’s Stargazing LIVE website for further details and trimmings.