PI ZERO

WALKING IN SPACE
News
WALKING BACK AGAIN
Although necessary for maintenance work on the space station, the spacewalk is also
one of the most sought-after tasks for an astronaut: a chance to get as close as is
humanly possible to the vast blackness of space, with the beauty of the Earth below
Science ahead
Tim has a busy schedule of science
experiments ahead, from studying
colloids in microgravity to the
effects of low gravity on brain
pressure, and how that affects
astronauts’ vision. Although only
eight hours are officially allocated
for education activities during Tim’s
stay aboard the ISS, and he has a
packed schedule of experiments
during his 40-hour working
week, he plans to spend Saturday
afternoons performing Astro Pi
stronger connection between Pi
users and space education, but
this will apply most strongly to
the British schoolchildren whose
experiments are carried on the
Principia Mission Astro Pis (see
‘The Story So Far’ boxout). Those
Astro Pis, in envy-inspiring
aerospace cases (possibly the most
requested accessory ever: we’re
sure they’ll become available some
time this year), are now ready and
waiting for Tim to carry out some
of the experiments. With Tim quite
If you missed the spacewalk, you can view the
whole thing on Tim Peake’s Principia Mission
blog, at magpi.cc/1JW6jii. Just try to imagine
performing the same movements in a swimming
pool, with weights attached to you, to get the full
feel of the endurance involved in carrying out these
engineering tasks!
As we go to press, the Astro
Pis have been unwrapped
COLUMBUS
experiments. To speed things along,
the Master Control Program (MCP)
– written to control the multiple
Astro Pi programs – will take care
of the timings of experiments,
and help with transferring data
back to mission control, where
Libby Jackson, the UK Space
Agency’s astronaut flight education
programme manager, will share it
with the rest of us.
Astronauts running code and
low-cost hardware that we can all
run back on Earth should make a
active on Twitter and Facebook
throughout the mission, you will be
able to share in the news when the
experiments start.
As we go to press, the Astro Pis
have been unwrapped and are
ready for the experiments to begin.
By the time you read this, the
first Pis to go beyond the Earth’s
atmosphere could be running code
from UK schools, inspiring a new
generation of scientists who’ll
be taking us further into space
in decades to come.
Tim Peake is working in Columbus – the first
European laboratory dedicated to long-term
experimentation in microgravity – which has
been attached to the ISS since 2008. For more
information about the Columbus research
laboratory, visit magpi.cc/1Qb9qlQ.
raspberrypi.org/magpi February 2016
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