About Astro Pi
What is Astro Pi?
The European Astro Pi Challenge offers young people the amazing opportunity to conduct scientific investigations in space by writing computer programs that run on Raspberry Pi computers aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
History
As part of British ESA astronaut Tim Peake’s Principia mission (2015–2016) on the ISS, two space-hardened Raspberry Pi computers, called Astro Pis, equipped with environmental sensors, were sent to the ISS and then used to run students’ and young people’s programs, with ISS crew support. As well as Tim, astronauts Thomas Pesquet, Alexander Gerst, David Saint-Jacques (CSA astronaut) and Luca Parmitano have all acted as ambassadors for the challenge.
Impact
- 17,000
young people participated in 2019/20 - 25
countries participated across Europe and Canada in 2019/20 - 40.5%
Female representation across the Astro Pi Challenge 2019/20 
Media attention raised the profile of STEM education
Who we are
ESA's Education Office is responsible for the Agency’s corporate education programme bringing together young people from many different nations.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a UK-based charity that works to put the power of computing and digital making into the hands of people all over the world.
