While looking for interesting things to display concerning the ISS during our upcoming ARISS contact, I stumbled across a now commercial product that started not long ago as an overfunded Kickstarter campaign. ISS-Above.
ISS-Above is a Raspberry Pi based product with different output configurations that indicate when the next International Space Station pass will happen. The output can be attractive screens showing via a HDMI connector, various LCD modules, or simply colored blinking lights. HDMI users have an additional feature — live streaming video feed from the Space Station (the HDEV: High Definition Earth-Viewing experiment).
While complete units can be purchased for about $150, RPi enthusiasts can use their own hardware by purchasing a SD Card image for $30.
I did the latter yesterday at about 2 PM, stuffed the SD card into a RPi Model B+ that I had hanging around with an Adafruit 16×2 LCD, and DLINK USB WiFi Dongle. By 2:30 PM I was up and running (most of that time was spent copying the OS image to the SD card).
I am completely blown away by what Liam has done with ISS-Above. My daughter and I sat transfixed in front of the TV watching the live video stream until the ISS went into darkness. I’ll be buying another license and putting together more hardware for use at All Saints Academy during on ARISS Contact Day in May
