Astro Pi: the animated adventures of Izzy and Ed

Right now, two Raspberry Pi computers are orbiting Earth on board the International Space Station.

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!

6 comments

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I like it! How do you make the cartoon characters? For the video and the resources page? :)

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Do the Pi units have a camera module? Neat to see a pic of the Earth made by a Pi, if it were possible…

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Yes; Ed has a visible light camera, and Izzy’s camera captures both visible and infrared light. Izzy has been tweeting Earth observation images that she has captured – take a look at https://twitter.com/astro_pi_ir!

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You know, Ed and Izzy actually sound like Minions with the “Wow…”

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The pictures on twitter are great, thanks for sharing.

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