Leading UK space organisations have joined forces with British ESA Astronaut Tim Peake and Raspberry Pi to offer students a chance to devise and code their own apps or experiment to run in space. Two Raspberry Pi computers are planned to be flown to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of Tims 6 month mission and both will be connected to a new Astro Pi board, loaded with a host of sensors and gadgets.

Launched today (10 Dec 2014) at an event held by the UK Space Agency, the Astro Pi competition will be officially opened at the BETT conference (21-24 January) and will be open to all primary and secondary school aged children who are resident in the United Kingdom. The competition will be supported by a comprehensive suite of teaching resources that are being developed by ESERO-UK and Raspberry Pi.

During his mission, Tim Peake plans to deploy the Astro Pi computers in a number of different locations on board the ISS. He will then load up the winning code whilst in orbit, set them running, collect the data generated and then download this to Earth where it will be distributed to the winning teams.

Speaking at the Astro Pi launch event, Dr David Parker, Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency, also revealed that the UK Space Agency has been given a 2 million programme, as part of the Chancellors Autumn Statement, to support further outreach activities around Tims mission, particularly to help inspire interest in STEM subjects.

Business Secretary Vince Cable said:

So much technology relies on big data but not enough people are being trained in this field. This challenge helps the next generation to have fun whilst learning the skills that industry need.

Creating tomorrows engineers is part of our industrial strategy that gives a long term commitment to world-class skills.

Tim Peake added:

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Send Your Computer Code Into Space with British ESA Astronaut Tim Peake