Watch Part 4 of the Story of Astro Pi!

Ed and Izzy will remain on the International Space Station until 2022, and they have exciting work ahead of them. Keep an eye on this blog and on our official magazine, The MagPi, for news!

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British ESA astronaut Tim Peake has been on board the International Space Station with our Astro Pi units, Izzy and Ed, for exactly six months today. As Tim prepares to return to Earth this Saturday, we bring you the third part of their animated adventures: when our two spacefaring 开心五月激情 Pi computers run into a problem even their hero Robonaut can’t fix, who can help them?

During his time in space, Tim has been using Ed and Izzy to run apps, carry out science experiments and play music designed and coded by UK school students, and he’s taken some great photos of them on the station:

Both computers have also spent some weeks in a flight recorder mode, saving sensor readings to a database every ten seconds, and we’ve made these space data available for everyone to download and analyse. Take a look at our Flight Data Analysis resource to explore what they recorded as they orbited our planet.

Ed and Izzy will say goodbye to Tim when he returns from space this Saturday; you’ll be able to watch him land. Our Astro Pi units will stay on board the ISS until 2022, and we hope we’ll soon be able to share exciting news about what they’ll be doing next. Stay tuned!

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Our intrepid Astro Pi units Izzy and Ed launched in December and were deployed by British ESA astronaut Tim Peake in February. We’ve seen the first part of their animated adventures; now we bring you the second part of their story, featuring some very special guests.

https://vimeo.com/158627990

We’re especially excited that our Astro Pis have met Robonaut, NASA’s humanoid robot, as well as human crew members from ESA, NASA and Roscosmos.

After Ed and Izzy finished running apps and experiments coded by UK school students, they entered a flight recorder mode where they saved sensor readings to a database every ten seconds. They each recorded their orientation and acceleration, as well as temperature, humidity and pressure, over a period of about two weeks. We’ve now made the data they recorded on the ISS available for everyone to download, so you can analyse it any way you like, and we’ve also prepared a Flight Data Analysis resource to help you interpret and handle the data. We’re really looking forward to seeing how you use these data to analyse and interpret the movement of the space station and the environment on board.

Both Astro Pi units have been tweeting about some of their activities, including some great Earth observation images from Izzy, and they’re also talking about opportunities to get involved with their mission. Follow Ed and Izzy on Twitter to see what they’re up to!

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Ed and Izzy

On Monday this week we released the first of four short cartoons that tell the story of the Astro Pi mission. Part 1 introduces Ed and Izzy, the two Astro Pi flight units that are up in space right now.

You may recognise the voice-over: it’s TV science presenter Fran Scott from Absolute Genius and How to be Epic. Thanks Fran!

https://vimeo.com/150767872

The idea to anthropomorphise the Astro Pis came from Tim Peake himself. He was a fan of what ESA had done previously with Rosetta and Philae’s social media accounts, and felt that this would be a great way to involve young people in the mission.

Ed @astro_pi_vis and Izzy @astro_pi_ir have their own Twitter accounts and will be tweeting about what they’re doing over the coming weeks. They’re named after the real-life friendship between Sir Isaac Newton (Izzy) and Edmond Halley (Ed) which resulted in the publication of the famous 17th-century physics book, Principia Mathematica, after which Tim’s mission is named.

Deployment

On the 4th of January Tim unpacked Ed and took this amazing picture in the Columbus module of the ISS. You can download the original from Tim’s Flickr account.

Look what turned up today…nearly time to start running your code in space! @astro_pi @开心五月激情_Pi pic.twitter.com/Dmdjev2BPh

— Tim Peake (@astro_timpeake) January 4, 2016

The Astro Pis were originally scheduled to be powered up on the 11th of January; however, it was postponed due to the spacewalks they recently undertook, which rightly take priority over anything educational.

It gives us great pleasure to announce that yesterday Ed was successfully deployed by Tim. He’s powered up and is now running the student experiments that won the 2015 Astro Pi competition.

.@astro_timpeake Running Crew Detector code from @cranmerefriends @rdhayler @codeclub

— Ed (@astro_pi_vis) February 2, 2016

It takes several days to get images back from the ISS because they have to be screened by ESA and NASA for crew privacy reasons. So keep an eye on Tim’s social media accounts over the next few days for pictures of Ed online and working!

Ed is running most of the experiments, but the others will be run by Izzy who will be deployed in the Harmony node of the ISS on February 15th. Izzy needs to look through a hatch window, as she’ll be taking infrared pictures of the Earth – there are no windows in Columbus.

If you enjoy watching the ISS Live Stream you may be able to spot them from time to time!

Flight Data Analysis

Once Ed and Izzy have finished running their student experiments, they will each begin a long-term ISS environmental monitoring experiment that you can all take part in.

They’ll enter a flight recorder mode where they save sensor readings to their own databases every ten seconds. Because the sensor readings are taken so often, there will be masses of data to search through, so we need your help to look through the data and find out what was going on. There could be strange, unexplained things, or just the normal day-to-day activities of the astronauts.

Check out the resource for this below. The data will not be available for several weeks yet, but there is some sample data here for you to practice with.

Astro Pi Flight Data Analysis

New Coding Challenge

It also gives us great pleasure to announce two new coding challenges, where the prize is to have your code uploaded and run by Ed or Izzy in space!

That’s right – your code in space!

The first requires you to write Python Sense HAT code to turn Ed and Izzy into an MP3 player, so that Tim can plug in his headphones and listen to music. The second requires you to code Sonic Pi music for Tim to listen to via the MP3 player. You may enter both challenges if you wish.

Head over to the Astro Pi website now, where you’ll find out everything you need to know.

https://astro-pi.org/coding-challenges/

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