My Nokia Lumia 800 has been airborne on occasion but usually no more than 1 or 2 feet from the ground. It turns out the Lumia is quite okay at 105,000 feet and even maintains data connectivity at 8km above Earth. No antenna issues there then.
The UK’s ASTRA (Atmospheric Science Through Robotic Aircraft) project investigates new technologies for making low cost observations of the parameters of the atmosphere and their latest experiment involved a Lumia 800. According to the Nokia Conversations blog, scientists from the University of Southampton shot the Lumia 800 into the stratosphere as a tool to help create balloon flight trajectory prediction software that can then be used to guide other missions, like weather balloons.
The black Lumia 800 traveled for 2 hours and 22 minutes on a journey over South Wales en route to Cornwall. It took some quite pretty pictures along the way too, and a small selection of the 2GB image set is available to download.
