Astro Pi – Raspberry Pi Foundation
In December 2015, British ESA Astronaut Tim Peake blasted off to the International Space Station for Mission Principia, and two Raspberry Pi computers with a special add-on board named the Astro Pi’s were waiting for him.
An Astro Pi is a special, space-hardened Raspberry Pi computer with sensors (Sense HAT) sent to the International Space Station (ISS) for the European Astro Pi Challenge, allowing students to write code that runs in space, gather real data, and conduct scientific investigations like calculating the ISS’s speed or taking pictures of Earth. It’s a joint project by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Raspberry Pi Foundation to inspire young people in coding and space science.
Raspberry Pi approached JWD Ltd to provide all mechanical and industrial design support in the creation of the Astro-Pi flight case. This custom-manufactured assembly had to retain the assembly of Raspberry Pi B+, a clock/timer PCB and the SenseHAT PCB, in a means suitable for operative life aboard the ISS and to be able to dissipate heat in zero gravity.
The finished product would be produced by a series of UK-based suppliers using Aerospace grade aluminium billet for the CNC-machined case outers and and it was necessary to complete the product ready for launch (literally) within 5 months of initial brief.
The initial Astro Pi competition invited school-age students from all over the UK to devise computer science experiments for Tim to run on board the ISS. These experiments were in the form of Python programs written and tested by the students, using their own Sense HATs and Raspberry Pis. The winning programs ranged from fun reaction time games to real science experiments looking at radiation in space. During the mission, Tim deployed the Astro Pis inside the European Columbus module, and ran each of the student programs in sequence. The results were downloaded back to Earth and were made available on the Astro-Pi website for all to see.
In October 2016, with the European Space Agency and CNES, the first ever European Astro Pi challenge was launched. The Astro-Pi team asked students from all across Europe to write code for the flight of French ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the Proxima mission. The winners were announced in March 2017, and since then their code has been uploaded to the ISS and run in space!
Deliverables: Product concept, part design, design for manufacture, product graphics and production support
