Astro Pi 2026/2027: students code their way to the International Space Station

Young people across Europe and Canada are invited to participate in two fun coding missions, offering them the amazing opportunity to run their programs on the Astro Pi computers aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Successful teams receive official certificates with runtime details and geo-coordinates, plus data and image sets to download and analyse.

Why join Astro Pi as a teacher or educator?

By participating in the European Astro Pi Challenge, your students will:

• Practise logical thinking and computing skills, using Python programming language

• Gain hands-on experience with scientific experimentation in space

• Have their code run in space and earn a certificate if their program complies with the project rules and receives flight status

What is Astro Pi?

The European Astro Pi Challenge is an ESA Education project run in collaboration with the Raspberry Pi Foundation and implemented by ESEROs at the national level. It gives young people the chance to do real space science while learning how to code through writing computer programs that run on space-hardened Raspberry Pi computers aboard board the ISS. 

Which Mission will your team take part in this year?

Mission Zero

Bring your artistic side to Mission Zero and create colourful pixel art with code. Mission Zero is a perfect beginner-level Python programming activity, recommended for young people between 9 and 16 who have no prior coding experience.

Young people use our online code editor to program colours and capture luminosity readings to change their image. You will find a selection of examples that you can use, modify and make your own in our step-by-step project guide. All code examples have been selected from Mission Zero teams that participated in the 2025/2026 mission. New this year, participants can build their programs using code blocks. This is a way to support team leaders in teaching block coding, helping beginners learn programming concepts through simple visual blocks instead of text. The ESA application automatically converts these blocks to Python code for submission.

Lots of teams like to animate their images so this year Astro Pi Mission Control have included worked code examples in our guide: one that produces a static image, and one that outputs a two-frame animation. Participants can edit these and modify them to make them their own, changing the colours, adding more image frames, or creating their very own image. Every eligible program will run on the ISS for 30 seconds and the LED matrix will display the pixel art for the astronauts to see as they go about their day. We look forward to seeing what participants make!

Mission Space Lab

Calling all aspiring space scientists! Mission Space Lab offers the amazing opportunity to capture sensor data and images of the Earth while the ISS is in orbit, 400 km above us. Working in a team, young people write a Python program to gather data from the Astro Pi computers that they can use to explore life on Earth or orbital mechanics. They can design an original space science project or use one of our ready-made guides. Every eligible program is guaranteed a 10-minute flight slot aboard the ISS.

We recommend Mission Space Lab for young people between 12 and 19 who have some prior experience in programming.

This year, teams can design their own scientific space experiment or use the guides to conduct vegetation analysis using NDVI imaging or calculate the speed the ISS is travelling. What will your team choose to investigate?

You will find an example for a basic data capture submission in the Mission Space Lab Creator Guide this year. This is a great starting point for teams to predict what the program will do, what kind of outputs they will receive, and use it to modify and make their own program. We also share a few examples of projects that teams have created in the past to help them generate ideas.

Meet our ambassador: ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet

We are excited to announce that ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet will be the ambassador for the European Astro Pi Challenge this year. Having worked aboard the International Space Station, Thomas learned first-hand how important it is to conduct scientific experiments in space. Thomas is no stranger to the European Astro Pi Challenge. In fact, he has been our ambassador twice before, during the 2016-2017 and 2020-2021 editions. He is currently preparing for his next mission, having been selected to command a private astronaut mission to the ISS, currently planned for 2027.

How to apply?

Ready to send your programs to space? Participation is open to individuals or teams of students aged up to 19 years old in ESA Member States, Canada, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, or Slovakia. Teams may be registered by teachers or educators, including members of a Scout group, coding or after-school club, or certified home school tutors.

Key dates:

Submissions open: 14 September 2026

Get to know Mission Space Lab webinar: 1 October 2026, 17:00 CEST

Deadline Mission Space Lab: 22 February 2027

Deadline Mission Zero: 22 March 2027

For full project details and to start training, visit: Astro Pi | A free challenge where kids run their code in space

Get in touch

The Astro Mission Control Team is here to help you on your missions. Check out the website for more details about how to book a call with us to support your team’s success, or email us at contact@astro-pi.org.

We’ll be running lots of support sessions and livestreams for both missions, so make sure you stay connected by registering. We look forward to you joining us.

In the meantime, look to the stars and see how far you can reach.