Portsmouth High pupil sends code to the International Space Station

Lowena Hull, a Year 11 pupil at Portsmouth High School, will have computer code that she wrote sent to the International Space Station (ISS) next month after getting through to the next stage of the Mission Space Lab run by the Raspberry Pi organisation. 

In September last year, Raspberry Pi launched its 2017/2018 Astro Pi Challenge with their partners at the European Space Agency. Students had the chance to design science experiments on two themes, Life in Space or Life on Earth, and write code to be run on one of the two Raspberry Pis onboard the ISS.

In April, Lowena’s code will be sent to the ISS, and she will then receive her experimental data back. Next, to get deeper insight into the process of scientific endeavour, she will then need to produce a final report analysing her findings. Winners will be chosen based on the merit of the entrants final report, and the winning teams will get exclusive prizes.

‘It’s amazing to get through to the next stage and I can’t wait to see what images of Earth will be collected!,’ said Lowena.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a UK-based charity that works to put the power of digital making into the hands of people all over the world. They provide low-cost, high-performance computers that people use to learn, solve problems and have fun.