A group of intrepid Emanuel students have been working hard for the AstroPi Mission Space Lab competition run by the European Space Agency together with the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The aim of the competition entry is to design an experiment to be carried out on the International Space Station using one of the two Raspberry Pi computers that are on board.
Ros Thwaites, James Giannopoulos, Indigo Beauchamp, Shahaan Bajwa, and Bella Tuck (Lower Sixth) together with Alberto Astolfi (Upper Sixth), who took part in the competition two years ago, have come up with an experiment to investigate the internal environment of the ISS as it travels around the Earth. Having succeeded in getting through to Phase 2 of the competition with this idea, they had to devise a computer programme that would perform the experiment remotely, 280km above the Earth’s surface.
They also had to collaborate remotely, of course, due to the pandemic, which added an extra layer of difficulty. The competition deadline was put back a week, to allow for these problems, but that week was the half term break, so to take advantage of the extra time the group had to meet during the holiday to make the final adjustments to the code.
If they succeed in getting to the next round of the competition, the experiment will be performed up in space some time in April. The program will collect data from temperature and humidity sensors, as well as gyroscopes and accelerometers which will give us information about the orientation in space and any forces acting on the sensors over the three hour period allowed by the competition. With this data the team hope to investigate how the spacecraft environment is affected by its position as it orbits the Earth, and with any activity by the astronauts themselves. They will then analyse the data, cross-referencing it with information about astronaut activity available on the internet.
Dr Dancy (Teacher of Physics)