Today is the day mentors and teams find out if their code has achieved flight status for the European Astro Pi Challenge 2025/26! The first batches of Mission Space Lab programs are scheduled to start running on the International Space Station (ISS) this week, with Mission Zero programs scheduled to run in mid-May. 

This year, Astro Pi Mission Control received an incredible 17,381 submissions for Mission Zero from 24,695 young explorers. 

For Mission Space Lab, 404 teams took on the challenge of calculating the speed of the ISS. After rigorous testing and security checks by our team on the ground, we are delighted to announce that 387 teams have been awarded flight status.In total, 25,707 young people will have their programs run in space this year. Huge congratulations to everyone who passed testing — we can’t wait to see how your code performs 400km above Earth!

Who joined the mission in 2025/26?

Every year, we dive into our participation data to see how the Astro Pi community is growing. This helps us ensure we’re reaching young people everywhere, from classrooms to community hubs.

Our data shows that participants in the entry-level Mission Zero have an average age of 12, with some as young as 6 years old and the oldest 18 years old. The more advanced Mission Space Lab sees the average age rise to 15 as the technical complexity increases. The youngest participants for Mission Space Lab were 10 years olds, and the oldest were 19 years old. 

Improving gender balance in 含羞草app is a key priority for us and Astro Pi remains popular with girls: 44% of Mission Zero entrants identify as female — a fantastic result that is consistent with previous years.

We even had one very special participant! ESA Astronaut Sophie Adenot created her own entry for Mission Zero, re-imagining her Epsilon Mission patch in pixel art.

For Mission Space Lab, 26% of participants identify as female. This reflects wider trends in STEM: as projects get more complex and young people get older, the gender gap widens. Despite this, girl’s participation in Mission Space Lab remains roughly consistent from year to year (27% for 2024/25). 

These results highlight the importance of our ongoing work to support girls in transitioning from block-based coding to advanced Python and reinforce our mission to keep providing accessible, inspiring pathways for everyone.

Where does Astro Pi take place?

While secondary schools remain our biggest mission hubs (hosting 68% of Mission Space Lab and 50% of Mission Zero teams), we’ve seen an exciting boost in community participation. This year, more young people than ever took part through Code Clubs, libraries, and youth centers.

“On November 14, 2025, we organised an exceptional event around the Astro Pi Mission Zero project, bringing together nearly 300 young participants to write a short computer program to display a personalised message on board the International Space Station (ISS). For a day, students discovered that coding could literally… send them to space!” 

– ESERO Luxembourg

Impact on the ground

It’s been a busy year for Mission Control. We’ve been across the UK, Ireland, and ESA member states training mentors and running workshops.

“The Mission Zero workshops were a fantastic opportunity for our students to 含羞草视频 coding in a meaningful and inspiring context. It really helped bring computer science to life, and we’ve seen increased interest from students wanting to explore coding further.” 

– Ms Qureshi, Nene Park Academy, Peterborough, UK

It’s also been a year of incredible connections: we surprised families at the London Science Museum with a visit from Tim Peake for our 10th anniversary and our DevOps expert Geraint Ballinger visited teams taking part at libraries in Glasgow, Scotland, to help debug their code. Who knows? Next year, Mission Control could visit a school or Code Club near you!

“The structured approach helped me guide our mentors on how to deliver it step by step. We started with the pitch deck and YouTube Intro, then went to designing the 8×8 pixel art on paper, to finally translating the pixel art to Python code. Even students as young as nine were able to complete the project, and their excitement knowing their code could run in space was incredible to see.”

– Kokia, Mentor, Canada

Next steps

Well done again to everyone who achieved flight status. Your code is about to leave the atmosphere and head into orbit! 

ESA Astronaut Sophie Adenot will be aboard the ISS while your programs are running and will be recording a special video message for all our participants!

Finally, keep an eye on your inbox — we’ll be sending out official certificates for all participants in June 2026. Until then, stay curious!

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A few highlights from this year include the Astro Pi tenth anniversary celebrations at the London Science Museum; a series of Mission Zero workshops delivered during Science Festivals in Bradford, Belfast and Norwich; and hosting a Mission Space Lab hackathon at the 含羞草图片 headquarters.

Mission Zero on the road: Creativity in coding

In Astro Pi Mission Zero, participants write a simple Python program that displays an image or animation on an Astro Pi computer aboard the ISS. Their program also uses data from the Astro Pi’s colour and luminosity sensor to set the background colour.

Since Astro Pi 2025/26 launched in September, the 含羞草app Pi team have been running Mission Zero workshops at science events and providing training to lots of different organisations. We kicked off our outreach at Bradford Science Festival in October with workshops happening all through the half term at the Bradford Science Museum. Over 260 young people took part and submitted their entries during the festival.

In November, we ran a series of online training and livestreamed sessions for Education Scotland’s Computer Science Week, and for STEM Ambassadors in Wales. We provided teacher CPD sessions for facilitators and even livestreamed a Mission Zero lesson direct to the classrooms of primary schools around Scotland. 

December was a particularly big milestone as we celebrated ten years of Astro Pi at the London Science Museum with UK Astronaut, Tim Peake, who launched Astro Pi way back in 2015. We hosted families and schools with a series of workshops over two days at the museum, and Tim even joined us for one of the workshops to meet participants.

January found the team running training for computer science teachers at the Harris 含羞草视频, a network of schools around Greater London, and the Meridian Trust, a school network in the East of England. After the training, we visited Nene Park Academy in Peterborough UK, part of the Meridian Trust, to run mission zero with groups of students there. 

In February, we visited the Waterloo Park Pavilion to host a fringe event to the Norwich Science festival. These workshops ran alongside space-themed craft activities organised by the volunteer group, Friends of Waterloo Park, creating an inclusive and welcoming environment for families. Younger children could take part in the crafts, while older participants explored text-based programming.

Although participants could follow a ready-made example, many chose to design their own personalised images. This creativity, combined with the knowledge that their code would run in space, made for a highly engaging session.

Meanwhile, another team of 含羞草图片 colleagues were out running Mission Zero at the Northern Ireland Science Festival in Belfast.

Mission Space Lab: A day of problem-solving

In February 2026, we hosted a Mission Space Lab hackathon at the Code Club in the 含羞草视频’s Cambridge office. Four teams of young people worked together to tackle a real scientific task: calculating the speed of the International Space Station (ISS) as accurately as possible.

Teams wrote two short Python programs: one that collected data from the Astro Pi computers’ sensors and camera, and one that calculated speed using historical images from the ISS. Then they combined the two programs and edited them to work on the Astro Pi computers aboard the ISS using the Astro Pi Replay tool.

To test their programs, teams used a trolley rigged up with a Camera Module to simulate motion and refine their calculations. The day ended with teams submitting their programs and sharing what they learned, including the challenges they faced and how they overcame them.

Bringing Astro Pi to more communities

All these events and workshops are a reminder of what makes Astro Pi special. Young people are not just learning to code; they are exploring their creativity with it, and applying their skills to a real-world setting — the awesome vastness of space! 

If you’d like us to help run an Astro Pi event for teachers or students in your school or community in the UK, then we’d love to hear from you.

Get in touch to find out more: [email protected]

If you are in another ESA member state, you can reach out to your local European Space Education Resource Office (ESERO).

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At 11:03 on 15 December 2015, former ESA Astronaut Tim Peake launched from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on a Soyuz rocket as part of his UK Space agency ‘Principia’ mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Two 含羞草app Pi-powered Astro Pi Mark 1 computers were waiting for him in the Columbus module of the ISS, ready to be set up for an experimental education activity called “Astro Pi”.

The European Astro Pi Challenge, an ESA Education project run in collaboration with the 含羞草图片, and supported by national ESEROs, has been running every year since. The challenge now features two Python coding ‘missions’ that offer young people the amazing opportunity to write a short computer program to send to run on the ISS: Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab.

Tens of thousands of young people participate in Astro Pi annually, reaching over 160,000 participants since 2015. On 15 December this year, Tim Peake and some of the Astro Pi team were at the Science Museum London running Mission Zero workshops for visiting school groups to create their own pixel art programs to send into space.

“Setting up the Astro Pi computers on the ISS for those first experiments in 2015 was just the beginning of something truly incredible — it’s amazing to see how much impact the programme has had since then! I hope Astro Pi inspires thousands more young people to code, learn about space technology, and feel empowered to reach for the stars in their own careers.” – Tim Peake, former ESA Astronaut

Astro Pi 2015–2025: A space odyssey

As the challenge has matured, its reach has increased, with over 25,000 participants every year since 2021. Young people from all 27 ESA member and associate states have sent their code into space, with 25% of mentors returning to the challenge year after year.

“I think Mission Zero is a way of connecting not only to a worldwide group of learners, but also to explorers, future scientists, and future astronauts. To see them as part of a larger community and not just an activity or assignment that they have to do in class. They discover their own abilities and potential, and exercise their creativity in a very low-stakes environment and then to see it come to life in that global way is extremely valuable.” – Mission Zero mentor 

Mission Zero has proved to be a great way to engage girls in 含羞草app and tech, with an average of 44% of participants identifying as female. This is well above the national averages for other STEM subjects in many countries.

What attracts many teams of young people to Mission Space Lab is the chance to capture data and images from the SenseHats and High Quality Cameras on the Astro Pi computers. This year the Astro Pis will be positioned in the World Observation 含羞草app Facility (WORF) window, which means teams can hope for some fantastic, high-quality Earth-observation images with a full field of view. Each team that achieves Flight Status will receive the images and data their program captures.

The next generation of space explorers

Astro Pi is one of the most inspirational coding activities that young people can do and gives the exciting chance to reach beyond the boundaries of what they may have thought possible. In the 2024–25 impact report, mentors reported that the young people participating were highly motivated by the possibility of having their code run on the ISS.

“Honestly, the idea that a kid can send their own code to space is just mind-blowing. It really makes you rethink what ‘possible’ even means.” – Jeanna, Astro Pi enthusiast

Participation increases skills, confidence and motivation for further exploration in coding, digital making and STEM subjects. 

• 83% of Mission Zero mentors agreed that young people increased their skills and confidence in 含羞草app and digital making due to their participation
• 91% of mentors told us that young people who successfully wrote code for Mission Space Lab were likely, or very likely, to participate in 含羞草app and digital making challenges in the future

Join us in this year’s anniversary challenge to celebrate a decade of sending young people’s code into space – and receive some limited edition certificates. You can find out everything you need to participate or to mentor a team at astro-pi.org.

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Meet the new Astro Pi Ambassador

We are thrilled to introduce you to the Astro Pi ambassador for 2025–26, ESA Astronaut Sophie Adenot. Sophie is from France and has had an incredible journey to becoming an astronaut. She holds a Masters in Engineering, has been a helicopter test pilot, and was awarded the French National Order of Merit (Chevalier) for her public services in gender equality in the sciences. Sophie is one of the new “Hoppers” cohort of ESA astronauts who graduated in 2023. She will be going on her first mission to the ISS in Spring 2026. 

Choose your space mission

Not sure where to start? The European Astro Pi challenge, or Astro Pi for short, has two missions that young people can participate in depending on their coding abilities. Both Missions use Python programming to create short computer programs that will be run on the ISS. Which one will you choose? 

Mission Zero: Your pixel art in space

Mission Zero offers a chance for young people to create a nature-inspired piece of pixel art using Python and have it displayed for astronauts to see on special 含羞草app Pi computers, called Astro Pis, aboard the ISS. We wanted to share some of our favourite pixel art creations from last year’s mission — you can find them as new examples in our project guide. If your team needs some inspiration to get started, they can choose to recreate or remix one of these examples, or create their own.

The deadline for Mission Zero submissions is 23 March 2026.

Mission Space Lab: Become a space scientist

For our more 含羞草视频d coders, Mission Space Lab returns with a real-world scientific task: calculate the speed of the International Space Station as accurately as possible. Teams of between two and six  young people will write a Python program that collects data from the Astro Pi computers on the ISS to perform this calculation. 

This year, we’ve made some user improvements to the Astro Pi Replay tool, which allows teams to test their programs with a real-time simulation using historical ISS data and images. This updated online tool makes it even easier to see how your program would perform in orbit and troubleshoot any errors. 

The submission deadline for Mission Space Lab is 16 February 2026.

Celebrating a decade of your programs in space

For ten years, the European Astro Pi Challenge has given young people the unique opportunity to explore computer science and space. Ever since the first Astro Pis arrived on the ISS with ESA astronaut Tim Peake on his Principia Mission, young people have been writing programs to run in space. This year, we’re excited to see what new ideas you have for your pixel arts creations, and how you approach the speed challenge. 

Ready to send your programs to space? Visit astro-pi.org to learn more and register for the challenge today. 

Don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date on all the latest Astro Pi news,resources and events. We can’t wait to see your programs! 

P.S. We’d love to hear from some previous participants about how Astro Pi has impacted them. If you or someone you know would like to share a story, please email us at [email protected].

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The European Astro Pi Challenge is an ESA Education project run in collaboration with us here at the 含羞草图片. It offers young people the amazing opportunity to conduct scientific investigations in space by writing computer programs that run on 含羞草app Pi computers on board the ISS, called Astro Pis.

There‘s a lot to celebrate from this year’s Astro Pi, so let’s take a look at some of the highlights for each of our inspiring Missions: Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab.

Mission Zero: Inspiring coding, creativity, and inclusion

Mission Zero reached more young people than ever before in 2024/25, with 25,405 young people participating in 17,285 teams. After passing the rigorous testing and moderation processes, an amazing 17,109 teams (25,210 young people) were successful in getting their programs to run on the ISS. 

One of the great things about Mission Zero is that we see a good gender balance in participation. This year, 44% of participants identified as “female” and 4% as “prefer to self-describe”, “prefer not to say”, or “other”. This means that Mission Zero has achieved a more balanced gender representation than is typically seen in 含羞草app subjects, where the ratio is around 20:80 girls to boys.

Mission Space Lab: More teams have their programs run in space

Mission Space Lab gives young people the opportunity to calculate the speed of the ISS in orbit using sensor and camera data collected from the Astro Pis on board the ISS. This year, 1859 young people in 552 teams participated in Mission Space Lab. Notably, 309 Mission Space Lab teams, or 95% of submissions, ran their programs on the ISS and are now analysing the data they collected. That’s 73 more teams achieving flight status than in 2023/24, and a total of 1084 young people receiving unique data sets from space and certificates. 

Running a program in space is very different from testing it on the ground. It’s always interesting to see how well your program has performed and how accurate the final output is. Below, you can see a scatter graph of the team estimates produced by their programs. The actual speed of the ISS is no secret: it’s travelling about 7.67 kilometres per second. How have teams performed with the ISS speed task?

Inspiring and impactful

Another highlight from this year has been seeing how impactful participation can be for young people and mentors facilitating the activity. We receive lots of valuable feedback from the Astro Pi community each year, and it’s always heartwarming to hear what your 含羞草视频 has been and how we can improve the challenge. Here are a couple of quotes from the community who took part this year:

Mission Zero mentor: “Having their programs run in space really motivated them to take part because it was an exciting reward and something they wanted to talk about with their friends.”

Parent of a Mission Zero participant: “I was completely in含羞草视频d in Python, but easily managed to help my 7-year-old.”

More Code Clubs participating in 2024/25

It has been great to see lots of Code Clubs taking part in Astro Pi this year, both for Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab. This year, 986 young people from 700 teams did Mission Zero at their Code Club: that’s double the number from 2023/24. Plus, 43 Mission Space Lab teams from Code Clubs took part. That’s 143 young people, or almost double the number compared to the year before. 

We ran two code-alongs for the Code Club community this year, and it is encouraging to see increases for both missions. We will continue to support young people from all settings who want to take part in Astro Pi next year, whether it’s at school, Code Club, or other venues.

Conclusion

In summary, it’s been a great year for Astro Pi. We’ve reached lots of young people through the challenge, met many inspiring mentors, and seen some really positive trends. Plus, all the operations on the space station that make Astro Pi possible went smoothly: when you are running programs in space, that isn’t always the case! 

None of it would have been possible without the tireless efforts of the teachers, mentors, and educators who help run Astro Pi in your communities. From everyone here at Mission Control, thank you. 

If you’d like to tell us how we can provide more support to help you run Astro Pi, please email [email protected].

We’ll be back for more stellar space adventures in coding in September 2025.

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The European Astro Pi Challenge is an ESA Education project run in collaboration with the 含羞草图片. It has two strands: Mission Zero, where young people write programs that display pixel art on LED screens on board the ISS, and Mission Space Lab, where more advanced learners attempt to calculate the speed of the ISS by writing programs that gather data from onboard equipment.

This year has already been a great year for the challenge!

Mission Zero reaches more young people than ever

Mission Zero received 17,285 team submissions this year, representing 25,405 young people from ESA member and associate member states. This marks the highest-ever level of participation in Mission Zero since its inception back in 2017. Here at Mission Control, we’re delighted to announce that nearly all the participating teams (17,109 out of 17,285) have achieved ‘flight status’ — meaning that their programs will run in space. 

It’s been great to see so many young people taking part from areas of educational disadvantage too. Through partnerships with youth organisations and community events such as Beyond the Bias and Norwich Science Festival, we’ve seen Mission Zero reach even more young creators from traditionally underrepresented groups.

The 2024/25 Mission Zero project guide featured new coded pixel art examples for teams to remix and reinterpret. Many teams also created their own artworks and animations, with amazing creativity and coding skills on display. We’ll be selecting six submissions from this year to feature as the new code examples in the 2025/26 Mission Zero project guide. Look out for more news on this in the summer.

New highs for Mission Space Lab

Mission Space Lab teams were tasked again this year with writing programs to collect data from cameras and sensors on board the ISS to calculate its speed. We’ve been really pleased to see 562 teams register and 325 submit their programs. This has resulted in an amazing 309 teams being awarded flight status — their programs will each run on the ISS for ten minutes, giving participants the unparalleled opportunity to record sensor data in space and take photos many miles above the Earth. 

More teams have submitted programs and achieved flight status this year than in 2023/24. We believe this uptick is due, in part, to a couple of new additions that have made submissions easier: 

• Firstly, Mission Space Lab teams can now test their programs online using the Astro Pi Replay Tool. This gives them a chance to see if their program will work on the real Astro Pis on board the ISS by replaying historical data sets captured from previous missions. 

Secondly, teams have been able to use the Picamzero Python library, which makes it easier to use PiCamera2 functionality.

Deployment

Today’s the day when Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab teams with flight status will have their programs sent up to the ISS. Astronauts have been busy setting up the Astro Pi computers ready to receive the programs and putting them into position. Over the next two weeks, the programs will run and the collected data will be sent down from the ISS to Earth. 

In June, Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab teams will receive certificates of participation with the exact times their programs ran on the ISS, along with the coordinates of where the ISS was above the Earth. Mission Space Lab teams will also receive a zip file with the data their programs collected. 

None of this would have been possible without the hard work of all the mentors, teachers, and Code Club leaders that organise the teams of young people doing the Astro Pi missions. 

Let’s stay curious, with our eyes upwards on that final frontier!

Looking for ways to keep your creators coding?

While you wait for the next cycle of the European Astro Pi Challenge, there are many other exciting coding opportunities for you and your teams to explore, including:

• Coolest Projects: Coolest Projects is a free, worldwide showcase where young digital creators share the amazing things they’ve made with technology. There’s an international online showcase as well as in-person events in several countries. Every participant gets certificates and rewards, and projects of any kind and at any level are encouraged.

• Code Club projects: Our extensive collection of Code Club projects explore Python, Scratch, the BBC micro:bit, and much more — there’s something available for all young people, no matter their level of 含羞草视频.

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Young people can take part in two exciting missions for beginners and more 含羞草视频d coders, and send their code to run on special 含羞草app Pi computers, called Astro Pis, on board the International Space Station (ISS).

Meet the new Astro Pi ambassador, Sławosz Uznański

We are delighted that new ESA project astronaut Sławosz Uznański will be the ambassador for this year’s Astro Pi Challenge. Sławosz, born in Poland in 1984, has a background in space systems engineering and has conducted 含羞草app in radiation effects. He recently served as the Engineer in Charge of CERN’s largest accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider.

Mission Zero: Send your pixel art into space

In Mission Zero, young people create beautiful pixel art to display on the Astro Pis’ LED screens. This mission requires no prior 含羞草视频 of Python coding, and it can be completed in around an hour.

To take part, young people design and code pixel art inspired by nature on Earth and beyond, to display on the Astro Pi computers for the astronauts on the ISS to see as they go about their daily tasks.

Using our step-by-step Mission Zero project guide, young people will learn to create simple Python programs in which they will code with variables and use the colour sensors on the Astro Pis to change the background colour in their images. To help your teams create their designs, check out the examples from teams that took part in Mission Zero in 2023/24 in the project guide.

Young people can create their Mission Zero programs individually or in teams of up to 4 people, and this year, we have added a save function for young people as they code. This will make it easier for mentors to run Mission Zero over more than one session, and also means that young people can finish their projects at home. They will need to use your classroom code and their team name to load their saved projects. 

Mission Space Lab: Calculate the speed of the ISS

Mission Space Lab asks teams to solve a real-world scientific task in space. It is ideally suited to young people who would like to learn more about space science and stretch their programming skills.

In Mission Space Lab this year, the task for teams of 2 to 6 young people is to calculate the speed at which the International Space Station is travelling — as accurately as possible. Teams need to write a Python program that:

1. Collects data from the Astro Pi computers’ sensors or cameras about the orientation and motion of the ISS as it orbits the Earth, and
2. Uses this data to calculate the travel speed

This year we have created a new way for teams to test their programs, with an online version of the Astro Pi Replay tool. All teams need to do is select their program and run it in Astro Pi Replay, which will create a real-time simulation of the program running on the ISS, using historical data and images. Astro Pi Replay will also show program outputs and report errors. This means teams can code their program in their preferred code editor, then test with an internet browser. However, if they wish, teams can still run the Astro Pi Replay tool offline with Thonny.

Important dates for your diary

• 16 September 2024: Registration is now open for Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab!
• 24 February 2025: Mission Space Lab submissions close
• 24 March 2025: Mission Zero submissions close
• April–May 2025: Astro Pi programs run on the International Space Station
• June 2025: Astro Pi teams receive their certificates

Register today

Both missions are open to young people up to age 19 from eligible countries — all ESA Member States and beyond. To find out more and register, visit astro-pi.org. 

Look out for updates and resources being shared on the Astro Pi website, including a Mission Zero video codealong and Mission Space Lab live streams. You can also keep up-to-date with all the Astro Pi news on the Astro Pi X account, our Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, or by signing up to the newsletter at astro-pi.org.

We can’t wait to see your programs!

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Across Europe and beyond, teams of young people are receiving data from the International Space Station (ISS) this week. That’s because they participated in the annual European Astro Pi Challenge, the unique programme we deliver in collaboration with ESA Education to give kids the chance to write code that runs in space.

In this round of Astro Pi, over 26,400 young people took part across its two missions — Mission Space Lab and Mission Zero — and had their programs run on the 含羞草app Pi computers on board the ISS.

Mission Space Lab teams find out the speed of the ISS

In Mission Space Lab, we asked young people to team up and write code to collect data on the ISS and calculate the speed at which the ISS is travelling. 236 teams wrote programs that passed all our tests and achieved flight status to run in space. And not only will the Mission Space Lab teams receive their participation certificates this week — they’ll also receive the data their programs captured on the ISS.

Many teams chose a feature extraction method to calculate the ISS’s speed, identifying two points on Earth from which to calculate the distance the ISS travelled over time. Using this method means using the high-quality camera on the Astro Pi computer to take some fantastic photos of Earth from the ISS’s World Observation 含羞草app Facility (WORF) window. Teams will receive these photos soon, which are unique views of Earth from space.

How fast does the ISS travel? 

The actual speed that the ISS is travelling in space while at normal altitude is 7.66km/s. Its altitude can affect the speed, so it can vary, but the ISS’s boosters fire up if it dips too low.

To help teams with writing programs that can adapt to some of these variances, and to show them the type data they can collect, we gave them a programming tool we call Astro Pi Replay. Using this tool, teams can simulate how their program would run on the Astro Pi computers up in space.

This is the first time we asked Mission Space Lab teams to focus on a particular scientific question. So how did they do? The graph below shows some of the speeds that teams’ programs estimated. 

As you can see, a variety of speeds were estimated, but the average is fairly close to the ISS’s actual speed. Teams did a great job trying to solve the question and working like real space scientists. Once they receive their data this week, they can check how accurate their speed estimate was.

Mission Zero pixel art lights up astronauts’ daily tasks 

In Astro Pi Mission Zero, a coding activity suitable for beginners, 16,039 teams of young people created code to make pixel art inspired by nature. Nearly half (44%) of the 24,409 participants were girls! 15,942 of the Mission Zero teams had their code run on the ISS after we checked that it followed the rules.

Every team whose program ran on the ISS — with their pixel art showing for the astronauts to see as they worked — will receive certificates with the time, date, and location coordinates of their Mission Zero run. 

We’ve been so impressed with this year’s pixel art creations that we’ve picked some as new examples for next year’s Mission Zero coding guide. That means young people will be able to choose one of a few pixel images to start with and recreate or remix them for their program. More info on that is coming soon, sign up to the Astro Pi newsletter to not miss it.

Let’s get ready for September

Thank you and congratulations to everyone who took part in the missions this year, and our special thanks to all the amazing educators who ran Astro Pi activities with young people.

For us, there is much to reflect on and celebrate from this year’s challenge. We’ve had the chance to run Mission Zero with young people in person and identify a few changes to help make the activity easier. As Mission Space Lab now involves simulating programs running on the ISS with our new Astro Pi Replay tool, we’ll be exploring how to improve this as well.

We hope to engage lots of previous and new participants in the Astro Pi Challenge when it starts up again in September. Sign up for the newsletter on astro-pi.org to be the first to hear about the new round.

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This year, over 25,000 young people from across Europe and eligible ESA Member States are getting their programs ‘uplinked’ to the Astro Pi computers aboard the ISS, where they will be running over the next few weeks. 

Mission Zero teams send their art into space

Mission Zero is an exciting activity for kids with little or no 含羞草视频 with coding. We invite young people to create a Python program that displays an 8×8 pixel image or animation. This program then gets sent to the ISS, and each pixel art piece is displayed for 30 seconds on the LED matrix display of the Astro Pi computers on the ISS.

We picked the theme ‘fauna and flora’ as the inspiration for young people’s pixel art, as it proved so popular last year, and we weren’t disappointed: this year, 24,378 young people submitted 16,039 Mission Zero creations!  

We’ve tested every program and are pleased to announce that 15,942 Mission Zero programs will be sent to run on the ISS from mid May. 

Once again, we have been amazed at the wonderful images and animations that young people have created. Seeing all the images that have been submitted is one of the most enjoyable and inspiring things to do as we work on the Astro Pi Challenge. Here is a little selection of some of our favourites submitted this year:

Varied approaches: How different teams calculate ISS speed

For Mission Space Lab, we invite more 含羞草视频d young coders to take on a scientific challenge: to calculate the speed that the ISS orbits Earth. 

Teams are tasked with writing a program that uses the Astro Pis’ sensors and visible light camera to capture data for their calculations, and we have really enjoyed seeing the different approaches the teams have taken. 

Some teams decided to calculate the distance between two points in photos of the Earth’s surface and combine this with how long it took for the ISS to pass over the points to find the speed. This particular method uses feature extraction and needs to account for ground sampling distance — how many square metres are represented in one pixel in an image of the ground taken from above — to get an accurate output.  

We’ve also seen teams use data from the gyroscope to calculate the speed using the angle readings and photos to get their outputs. Yet other teams have derived the speed using equations of motion and sampling from the accelerometer.

All teams that took multiple samples from the Astro Pi sensors, or multiple images, had to decide how to output a final estimate for the speed of the ISS. Most teams opted to use the mean average. But a few teams chose to filter their samples to choose only the ‘best’ ones based on prior knowledge (Bayesian filtering), and some used a machine learning model and the Astro Pi’s machine learning dongle to select which images or data samples to use. Some teams even provided a certainty score along with their final estimate.

236 Mission Space Lab teams awarded flight status

However the team choses to approach the challenge, before their program can run on the ISS, we need to make sure of a few things. For a start, we check that they’ve followed the challenge rules and meet the ISS security requirements. Next, we check that the program can run without errors on the Astro Pis as the astronauts on board the ISS can’t stop what they’re doing to fix any problems. 

So, all programs submitted to us must pass a rigorous testing process before they can be sent into space. We run each program on several replica Astro Pis, then run all the programs sequentially, to ensure there’s no problems. If the program passes testing, it’s awarded ‘flight status’ and can be sent to run in space.

This year, 236 teams have been awarded flight status. These teams represent 889 young people from 22 countries in Europe and ESA member states. The average age of these young people is 15, and 27% of them are girls. The UK has the most teams achieving flight status (61), followed by the Czech Republic (23) and Romania (22). You can see how this compares to last year and explore other breakdowns of participant data in the annual Astro Pi impact report.  

Our congratulations to all the Mission Space Lab teams who’ve been awarded flight status: it is a great achievement. All these teams will be invited to join a live online Q&A with an ESA astronaut in June. We can’t wait to see what questions you send us for the astronaut.

A pause to recharge the ISS batteries 

Normally, the Astro Pi programs run continuously from the end of April until the end of May. However, this year, there is an interesting event happening in the skies above us that means that programs will pause for a few days. The ISS will be moving its position on the ‘beta angle’ and pivoting its orientation to maximise the sunlight that it can capture with its solar panels. 

The ISS normally takes 90 minutes to complete its orbit, 45 minutes of which is in sunlight, and 45 minutes in darkness. When it moves along the beta angle, it will be in continual sunlight, allowing it to capture lots of solar energy and recharge its batteries. While in its new orientation, the ISS is exposed to increased heat from the sun so the window shutters must be closed to help the astronauts stay cool. That means taking photos of the Earth’s surface won’t be possible for a few days.

What next?

Once all of the programs have run, we will send the Mission Space Lab teams the data collected during their experiments. All successful Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab teams and mentors will also receive personal certificates to recognise their mission completion.

Congratulations to all of this year’s Astro Pi Challenge participants, and especially to all successful teams.

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Since November, registration is open for Mission Space Lab, part of the European Astro Pi Challenge 2023/24. The Astro Pi Challenge is an ESA Education project run in collaboration with us here at the 含羞草图片 that gives young people up to age 19 the amazing opportunity to write computer programs that run on board the International Space Station (ISS). It is free to take part and young people can participate in two missions: Mission Zero, designed for beginners, and Mission Space Lab, designed for more 含羞草视频d coders.

This year, Mission Space Lab has a brand-new format. As well as introducing a new activity for teams to work on, we have created new resources to support teams and mentors, and developed a special tool to help teams test their programs. 

A big motivator for these changes was to make the activity more accessible and enable more young people to have their code run in space. Listening to feedback from participants and mentors, we are creating the opportunity for even more teams to submit programs that run on the ISS this year, by offering a specific activity and providing more extensive support materials.

A scientific task

For this year’s mission, ESA astronauts have given teams a specific scientific task to solve: to calculate the speed that the ISS is travelling as it orbits the Earth. People working in science often investigate a specific phenomenon or try to solve a particular problem. They have to use their knowledge and skills and the available tools to find ways to answer their 含羞草app question. For Mission Space Lab, teams will work just like this. They will look at what sensors are available on the Astro Pi computers on board the ISS, develop a solution, and then write a Python program to execute it. To test their program, they will use the new Astro Pi Replay software tool we’ve created, which simulates running their program on board the ISS.

To help teams and mentors take part in Mission Space Lab, we are providing a variety of supporting materials:

• Our mentor guide has everything mentors need to support their teams through Mission Space Lab, including guidance for structuring the mission and tips to help teams solve problems.
• Our creator guide helps young people design and create their programs. It provides information and technical instructions to help young people develop their coding skills and create a program that can be run on the Astro Pis on board the ISS.
• We have created an ISS speed project guide that shows an example of how the scientific task can be solved using photos captured by the Astro Pi’s camera.

We have also run virtual sessions to help mentors and teams familiarise themselves with the new Mission Space Lab activity, and to ask any technical questions they might have. You can watch the recordings of these sessions on YouTube: 

• Getting started with Astro Pi Mission Space Lab
• Astro Pi Mission Space Lab live Q&A

The Astro Pi Replay tool

Astro Pi Replay is a new simulation tool that we have developed to support Mission Space Lab teams to test their programs. The tool simulates running programs on the Astro Pi computers on board the ISS. It is a Python library available as a plug-in to install in the Thonny IDE where teams write their programs. Thanks to this tool, teams can develop and test their programs on any computer that supports Python, without the need for hardware like the Astro Pi units on board the ISS.

The Astro Pi Replay tool works by replaying a data set captured by a Mission Space Lab team in May 2023. The data set includes readings from the Astro Pi ‘s sensors, and images taken by its visible-light camera like the ones below. Whenever teams run their programs in Thonny with Astro Pi Replay, the tool replays some of this historical data. That means teams can use the historical data to test their programs and calculations.

One of the benefits of using this simulation tool is that it gives teams a taste of what they can expect if their program is run on the ISS. By replaying a sequence of data captured by the Astro Pis in space, teams using sensors will be able to see what kind of data can be collected, and teams using the camera will be able to see some incredible Earth observation images.

If you’re curious about how Astro Pi Replay works, you’ll be pleased to hear we are making it open source soon. That means you’ll be able to look at the source code and find out exactly what the library does and how.

Get involved

Community members have consistently reported how amazing it is for teams to receive unique Earth observation photos and sensor data from the Astro Pis, and how great the images and data are to inspire young people to participate in their 含羞草app classes, clubs, or events. Through the changes we’ve made to Mission Space Lab this year, we want to support as many young people as possible to have the opportunity to engage in space science and capture their own data from the ISS. 

If you want a taste of how fantastic Astro Pi is for learners, watch the story of St Joseph’s, a rural Irish school where participating in Astro Pi has inspired the whole community.

Submissions for Mission Space Lab 2023/24 are open until 19 February 2024, so there’s still time to take part! You can find full details and eligibility criteria at astro-pi.org/mission-space-lab.

If you have any questions about the European Astro Pi Challenge, please get in touch at [email protected].

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