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First Space Message Sent Using Mobile Phone Technology!



No need to go on the alert! Just calm down and move along… No one ever replies to my general post when Science is in the topic. I guess their scared…. : )

Anyway maybe a crew member of the next Space Shuttle Mission could call on their cell phone and let a member of the ISS crew know…… We’re here! “Waving out the window as the Space Shuttle cruises in for a soft dock. ( They would be like ) , "Alright I see you bro! " " I got the chess table set. "


After its successful launch into space last week, the Herschel Space Observatory used cell phone technology to call back home — the first time the technology has been used in spaceflight. Herschel and its partner Planck were launched in tandem aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from the European Space Agency's (ESA) Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana.

Herschel is the largest, most powerful infrared telescope ever launched into space. It will make observations in the far-infrared to sub-millimeter wavelengths of light that will allow astronomers to study cold, dark dust clouds and possibly star formation in action.


At 12:00 GMT (8:00 a.m. EST) on May 16 — just under two days after launch — Herschel switched its telemetry downlink to "high rate mode" and began transmitting, marking the first-ever use of Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK) modulation in space. GMSK is commonly used in Global System for mobile Communication (GSM) mobile phone networks due to its very efficient use of bandwidth and power. The transmission sent send test data to ESA's deep space tracking station at New Norcia, Australia.


"Herschel's 1.5-Mbps test transmission — roughly the same data rate provided by a home broadband Internet connection — was picked up at ESA's ESTRACK station at New Norcia, Australia, on Saturday, as the satellite was traveling some 280,000 kilometers [174,000 miles] from Earth," said John Dodsworth, the Herschel-Planck Flight Operations Director at ESA's European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany.


In a typical GSM mobile phone network, the same technology transmits data at a somewhat lower speed. Planck also uses GMSK technology, and its transmission capability will be tested later during the satellite's commissioning phase.