14 DAY TRIAL // The Raspberry Pi is going to the International Space Station and it's doing that in the most awesome aluminum case that you have ever seen.
You can't just take a Raspberry Pi up into space or aboard the International Space Station without meeting some very important requirements. First of all, it needs a case, but not something that you can pick up from eBay. It needs something that's large, made from aluminum and has extremely good cooling properties. In fact, this case is so special that only a limited number of them will be built.
The European Space Agency and NASA have some pretty serious guidelines in place when it comes to small objects that need to take to the ISS. Even if a case is built for Raspberry Pi that meets all of their requirements, it still needs to be approved. From the looks of it, the two space agencies have already given the green light and the Raspberry Pi is going to space and it's doing that in style.
Plans for the case will be made public
The makers of this cool aluminum case are not keeping this a secret and they promised to make the plans public so that anyone with a 3D printer or access to a machine shop can built their own. Unfortunately, this particular model that has been approved to go to ISS won't be available for sale.
"The latest update to the Astro Pi project is the unveiling of the Astro Pi aluminium flight case that British ESA Astronaut Tim Peake will be using on the ISS. The case is made from 6063 grade aluminium which is standard for aerospace applications. The most important of these requirements is touch temperature. There is a rule that any surface, that the crew can touch, must not reach or exceed 45 degrees Celsius. Our Jonathan Bell and SSTL’s Nimal Navarathinam did extensive thermal simulations to work out this design," said Dave Honess from the Astro Pi project.
Some of you will also notice that the case also comes with an LED matrix and joystick, along with a quad of buttons. Its makers say that Raspberry Pi can be attached to a Bogen arm and the crew might want to turn the camera manually.
The size of the case also ensures that it's properly cooled, so the mini-PC doesn't become a source of heat aboard the ISS. And, to top it all off, the Astro Pi can also be hooked up to the cords used by astronauts.
Some more testing needs to be done, but it's very likely that the Astro Pi will soon be orbiting above the Earth with a speed of 7.66 km/s (4.76 miles/s).