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Young People Have the Chance to Run Their Code on the International Space Station

The European Space Agency (ESA) is inviting young people from the age of seven all the way up to 19 to take part in the European Astro Pi Challenge. All they have to do is write a simple program to display a personalized message on a Raspberry Pi computer for the astronauts on the ISS.
ESA is inviting young people to take part in the Astro Pi Challenge 6 photos
Photo: ESA via Youtube
ESA is inviting young people to participate in the Astro Pi ChallengeESA is inviting young people to participate in the Astro Pi ChallengeESA is inviting young people to participate in the Astro Pi ChallengeESA is inviting young people to participate in the Astro Pi ChallengeESA is inviting young people to participate in the Astro Pi Challenge
Organized together with the Raspberry Pi Foundation, the Astro Pi Challenge is an ESA Education project that allows students and young people to carry on scientific research in space by writing programs that run on Raspberry Pi computers abroad space station.

The challenge is composed of two missions that have different levels of complexity, namely Mission Zero and Mission Space Lab. Mission Zero is suitable for beginners to programming who wish to have their code run on the ISS, whereas Mission Space Lab will have participants design and program a scientific experiment to run on the space lab.

Those who choose to take part in the Mission Zero challenge will not be needing any special hardware or prior coding experience. Furthermore, all participants who meet the challenge requirements are guaranteed to have their program run in space. That means astronauts will view their message for roughly 30 seconds as they go about their daily tasks.

ESA is holding a special event as well for all Mission Zero participants. Young people will have the chance to vote for the names of two new Astro Pi computers that will be sent to the space station.

The computers will be named after two renowned European scientists. ESA already proposed eight options from which people can pick, but they can also suggest their own names. It is worth noting that the naming contest isn’t a requirement to participate in Mission Zero.

The final names of the two Astro Pi computers will be announced in December. Entries for Astro Pi Mission Zero can be submitted until March 18th, 2022. The successful students will have their programs run in space in May 2022.


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About the author: Florina Spînu
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Florina taught herself how to drive in a Daewoo Tico (a rebadged Suzuki Alto kei car) but her first "real car" was a VW Golf. When she’s not writing about cars, drones or aircraft, Florina likes to read anything related to space exploration and take pictures in the middle of nature.
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