Scream in Space via an orbiting smartphone

India today successfully launched seven satellites on a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on Sriharikota Island. One of the payloads is the STRaND-1 Cubesat built by Surrey Satellite and operated by a “Google Nexus One smartphone with an Android operating system”: World’s first “phonesat”, STRaND-1, successfully launched into orbit – Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL).

The phone provides

cameras, radio links, accelerometers and high performance computer processors – almost everything except solar panels and propulsion.  During the first phase of the mission, STRaND-1 will use a number a number of experimental Apps to collect data while a new high-speed linux-based cubesat computer developed by SSC takes care of the satellite.  During phase two, the STRaND team hope to switch the satellite’s in-orbit operations to the smartphone, thereby testing the capabilities of a number of standard smartphone components for a space environment.

SSTL carried out a public contest for apps to be run on the phone and the winners included apps for magnetic field measurements, satellite telemetry display, and earth imaging,

 

And the fourth app is Scream in Space!

Testing the theory ‘in space no-one can hear you scream, made popular in the 1979 film ‘Alien’, the app will allow the public to upload videos of themselves screaming in a creative way to an allocated website.  The most popular videos will be played on the phone while in orbit and the scream recorded using the smartphone’s microphone.

Here is a gallery of the video screams submitted: Screams | Scream in Space!