If you’ve ever had the chance to spend time with space engineers, you learn really fast they like to tinker. It’s not surprising that this team from NASA has been working on a cool Raspberry Pi project that mimics the International Space Station (ISS) via a robotic replica.
The project is dubbed the ISS Mimic. It’s a 1% scale model of the actual ISS. Most of the components are 3D printed; A total of 12 motors are used to control the solar panels and thermal radiators.
The model moves in real-time based on data received directly from the ISS. When a solar panel moves in space, the corresponding panel moves on the ISS Mimic.
The ISS data is available publicly and accessed using a Raspberry Pi. The information is processed through a series of custom JavaScript and Python code which is used to generate commands for the ISS model. Kivy was used to create graphics for a touchscreen interface.
If you want to see this impressive robotic model in action, check out the official ISS Mimic channel on YouTube and be sure to follow them for future updates.