Submission form

App Name

iTesa (Ionspheric Tesla Atlas)

Description of Application

Using the phone and satellite magnetometers, record the magnitude of the magnetic field about the phone during orbit. This will be overlaid on an atlas, with colour representing magnetic field strength, to either be sent back as a picture, or the data will be sent back to generate a short movie showing the location of the satellite over an atlas with a moving shadow/sunshine.

Why we should choose this app? (Hints: Are there any scientific benefits? Is it a good tool for outreach to energise schools about science and technology? Will it demonstrate something technologically novel or demonstrate useful new software?)

This app will be a precursor to more serious scientific study of things like space weather and Alfven waves. These studies require vastly more data collection than a single orbit, but a proof of principle would be a fine thing.

This app also has the potential to integrate with a web interface to display the updated graph after fresh data has been accumulated and transmitted via a downlink.

Why is it fun?

The distinction between what is recorded by the phone and external magnetometers will be very interesting to see the future potential for simply a phone to be sent in to space and used for actual scientific study.

Does your app rely on any other software or software libraries?(e.g. OpenCV, JTransforms, Java agentlib, OpenGL, Java WorldWind, GeoTools etc.)

Possibly Geotools for location data. Depending on how the GPS data is formatted.

Does your app need or rely on data from any other parts of the satellite? (e.g. GPS data, satellite pointing direction etc.)

We will require both magnetometers and GPS data. The orientation of the phone is not so important as we will be taking the magnitude.

Describe the kind of data your app would need to downlink back to Earth, and an estimate of how much data transfer will be required.

Either a picture (or two) or the raw data. Whichever is easiest and we will cater the averaging of measurements to be limited to whatever is sensible to return.

Are you starting from scratch?

Yes