Windows Phone 7 Goes to Space

This is pretty interesting.  Friday a Windows Phone 7 device took a 90mph ride on a balloon to an altitude of 18,235 meters (over 60,000 feet).  I don’t know if that’s technically space but it’s a lot higher than you can throw an iPhone 4.  It landed 47 miles downrange.  This was all part of the University of Southampton’s ASTRA project.

ASTRA investigates new technologies for making low cost observations of the physical parameters of the atmosphere. We develop and test platforms capable of delivering scientific instruments to altitudes ranging from the planetary boundary layer (hundreds of meters) to the upper stratosphere (up to 50km).

And FYI, they used an Azure based application for the cloud service.  Grin. 

See https://www.soton.ac.uk/~astra/diary.html for the details.