India space agency has successfully launched the first smartphone of the University of Surrey's Surrey Space Centre (SSC) into orbit.

The university's SSC said that the nano-satellite carrying a smartphone, STRaND-1 has been launched into space by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The STRaND-1 is a training and demonstration mission and is loaded with a host of experimental apps. The device was launched into a 785km Sun-synchronous orbit on ISRO's PSLV launcher.

The apps for the first smartphone in space were developed by winners of a competition on social networking site, Facebook. The smartphone has an app called, iTesa which will record the magnitude of the magnetic field around the device during orbit. The app could be used for further scientific studies by researchers.

The Scream in Space app, which was developed by Cambridge University Space Flight, will

use the smartphone's speakers to play videos of the best screams in orbit while its microphone will record the voices to test the theory that no one hear screen in space.

Another app called, STRAND Data app will show satellite telemetry of the display and it will be recorded using the additional camera on-board. It will allow new graphical telemetry to improve understanding of the trends. The device also has the 360 app that take images through the smartphone's camera and uses the technology to determine the position of the spacecraft.

Sir Martin added, "This launch is SSC's first with ISRO, and I am looking forward to exploring opportunities for further launches and a wider collaboration on space projects in the future."