The team at Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) in Guildford want to see if the sophisticated capabilities in today's phones will function in the most challenging environment known.
The phone will run on Google's Android operating system but the exact model has not yet been disclosed.
It will be used to control a 30cm-long satellite and take pictures of the Earth in the mission later this year.
Although mobile phones have been flown on high altitude balloons before, this would likely be the first time such a device has gone into orbit several hundred kilometres above the planet.
"Modern smartphones are pretty amazing," said SSTL project manager Shaun Kenyon.
"They come now with processors that can go up to 1GHz, and they have loads of flash memory. First of all, we want to see if the phone works up there, and if it does, we want to see if the phone can control a satellite."
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The venture is part of the company's quest to find more inexpensive, off-the-shelf electronics that can be used to lower the cost of its spacecraft designs.
The mission is known as STRaND-1 (Surrey Training Research and Nanosatellite Demonstration).
The phone will run on Google's Android operating system but the exact model has not yet been disclosed.
It will be used to control a 30cm-long satellite and take pictures of the Earth in the mission later this year.
Although mobile phones have been flown on high altitude balloons before, this would likely be the first time such a device has gone into orbit several hundred kilometres above the planet.
"Modern smartphones are pretty amazing," said SSTL project manager Shaun Kenyon.
"They come now with processors that can go up to 1GHz, and they have loads of flash memory. First of all, we want to see if the phone works up there, and if it does, we want to see if the phone can control a satellite."
High Street product
The venture is part of the company's quest to find more inexpensive, off-the-shelf electronics that can be used to lower the cost of its spacecraft designs.
The mission is known as STRaND-1 (Surrey Training Research and Nanosatellite Demonstration).
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