Photo: NASA
At any given time, the International Space Station is whizzing around the Earth roughly 400 km (248 mi) above the surface at a brisk eight km per second (17,900 mph). On clear nights across, passionate stargazers can just barely make out the world's biggest space station as a barely luminous flash of light skips across the night sky. Assuming the observers knew what to look for, that is. But thanks to the magic of the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, NASA's just taken all the guesswork out of the operation.
Thanks to the all-new Spot The Station app, all it takes to line up the perfect observation path for the ISS is to open your phone and check out real-time updates on the station's location. Available for both iOS and Android devices, the Spot The Station app takes its inspiration from the browser-based web page of the same name. Through the app, observers can check real-time flight data as the ISS makes its rounds around low-Earth orbit. Through the magic of augmented reality, the app gives a complex visual indicator of where the ISS is along its flight path, even if it's currently on the other side of the Earth from your location.
Using the powerful visual tools integrated into the Spot The Station app, NASA aims to make spotting the slim refraction of sunlight off the ISS as it flies overhead easier than ever. Observers only have a small window of opportunity to observe the station visually before the gargantuan spacecraft skips overhead for one more orbit. Depending on the weather conditions at any given time at one location, observers might get anywhere from one opportunity a month to peep the ISS or as many as a couple times a week. Safe to say
From first-time stargazers to experienced veterans looking for simpler ISS observation solutions, there's not a space junkie out there that can't benefit at least a little bit from being able to spot the ISS pass overhead just that little bit easier. "Even after 23 years of continuous human presence aboard the International Space Station, it’s incredibly exciting to see the station when you look up at just the right moment," said Robyn Gatens, International Space Station director at NASA Headquarters in Washington D.C.
"The orbiting laboratory that continues to provide so many unique, tangible benefits for humanity really isn’t that far out of reach." But believe it or not, the Spot The Station app has one more trick up its sleeve. Apart from being a fantastic ameture scientific tool, the Spot The Station app's source code is 100 percent open source for ameturer coders to modify and report feedback as they please. With the 25th year anniversary of the ISS coming up, that's something worth celebrating.
Using the powerful visual tools integrated into the Spot The Station app, NASA aims to make spotting the slim refraction of sunlight off the ISS as it flies overhead easier than ever. Observers only have a small window of opportunity to observe the station visually before the gargantuan spacecraft skips overhead for one more orbit. Depending on the weather conditions at any given time at one location, observers might get anywhere from one opportunity a month to peep the ISS or as many as a couple times a week. Safe to say
From first-time stargazers to experienced veterans looking for simpler ISS observation solutions, there's not a space junkie out there that can't benefit at least a little bit from being able to spot the ISS pass overhead just that little bit easier. "Even after 23 years of continuous human presence aboard the International Space Station, it’s incredibly exciting to see the station when you look up at just the right moment," said Robyn Gatens, International Space Station director at NASA Headquarters in Washington D.C.
"The orbiting laboratory that continues to provide so many unique, tangible benefits for humanity really isn’t that far out of reach." But believe it or not, the Spot The Station app has one more trick up its sleeve. Apart from being a fantastic ameture scientific tool, the Spot The Station app's source code is 100 percent open source for ameturer coders to modify and report feedback as they please. With the 25th year anniversary of the ISS coming up, that's something worth celebrating.
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