AstroPI - Measuring the speed of the ISS

The AstroPi initiative, orchestrated by the European Space Agency, constituted a singular technological challenge whose theatre of operations was none other than the International Space Station itself. European student teams were invited to craft a purely optical, machine-vision-based algorithm capable of deriving the station’s orbital velocity without recourse to accelerometers, gyroscopes, GPS fixes or any other ancillary telemetry. Only the unadorned, 5-megapixel frame of a Raspberry Pi camera module affixed to the station’s panoramic window could be used.

Our team from Colchester Royal Grammar School participated in this challenge. I was the key player in this team. I spent a lot of time with the ostensibly trivial task of measuring speed from imagery. In the orbital context, this task prooved to be a formidable exercise. Speed calculation wasn't easy. Beneath the ISS, continents slip into night, sun-glint skitters across oceanic expanses, and cloud decks rearrange themselves into ephemeral mosaics whose motion is decoupled from the station’s own inertial trajectory.

After several weeks of working on this task, I could finally come up with a solution and have implemented it in software. My teammates have approved the solution. My code was uploaded to the space station and ran on 2nd April, 2025.

Source code: AstroPi.zip

Creator guide: Mission-space-lab-creator-guide

ESA certificate: Space_Lab_Certificate_crgs_82483team_250611_113736.pdf

Code execution report

Images

The AstroPI hardware on the International Space Station (ISS)