NASA has launched a new app to make it easy to spot the International Space Station in the night sky. The app builds on the agency’s Spot the Station website by providing additional capabilities and information to enhance the station sighting experience for the public.
There is an augmented reality interface that makes it easier for users to locate the station and provides options for capturing and sharing pictures and videos of their sightings in real-time.
“Even after 23 years of continuous human presence aboard the International Space Station, it’s incredibly exciting to see the station when you look up at just the right moment. The orbiting laboratory that continues to provide so many unique, tangible benefits for humanity really isn’t that far out of reach,” said Robyn Gatens, International Space Station director at NASA headquarters in Washington.
The International Space Station is best visible in the early morning or evening when the sun is not up but its light is reflecting off of the orbiting station. The app tells the user when the station will be over your location at the optimal time for it to shine brightest.
International Space Station Orbiting Earth. 3D Illustration
Spot the Station’s official release comes just one month before the ISS’ 25th anniversary, when the Zarya and Unity modules were united back on December 6, 1998. On Nov. 2, 2000, NASA astronaut Bill Shepherd and cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev became the first people to live aboard the station.
The application was developed by the International Space Station Programme in NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate and the Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation, part of the Prizes, Challenges, and crowdsourcing programme in the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. The app’s code is open source for anyone to access, modify, and use in their own projects and to provide optional feedback to the developers.