A Raspberry Pi camera is orbiting the Earth, attached to ESA's YPSat, a week after both were supposed to have burned up upon re-entering the atmosphere with the upper stage of the Ariane 6.

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Pi camera hardware on ESA YPSat – credit: ESA-J Krompholtz

[2]YPSat is a neat payload bolted to the Ariane 6 payload adaptor and was designed to record all the key phases of the rocket's inaugural flight. Built to last just three hours, the payload was meant to have re-entered with the upper stage on Tuesday last week – July 9 – and burned up in the atmosphere.

However, a [3]problem with an Auxiliary Propulsion Unit (APU) coupled with the failure of the Vinci engine on the stage to start has meant that YPSat has been able to spend a bit longer in orbit than its designers had planned, even if its batteries are likely long dead by now.

The YPSat payload came together quickly. The concept was devised at the start of 2022 on a "Keep It Simple Stupid" basis. Within some months – by August – the design was finalized as a payload of opportunity on the first Ariane 6 flight.

Eagle-eyed Pi fans will be delighted to see the inclusion of a Raspberry Pi camera on the unit. YPSat aimed to acquire imagery of the fairing and payload separations, as well as snapping pictures from the top of the upper stage before transmitting the recorded data back to Earth ahead of the expiry of its power source and reentry into the Earth's atmosphere.

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While YPSat appears to have [5]worked perfectly , from detecting lift-off, through to capturing the moment of fairing separation and taking images of Earth from orbit, the reentry bit did not go so well. YPSat, with its Raspberry Pi image hardware, remains in space until the orbit of the upper stage of the Ariane 6 finally decays and the payload is destroyed.

[6]Europe blasts back into the heavy launch biz with first Ariane 6 flight

[7]Ariane 6 ready to rocket, bringing heavy-lift capability back to Europe

[8]First Ariane 6 rocket ready to assemble as Europe begins final countdown

[9]Long-delayed Ariane 6 rocket is 'ready to go' – hopefully – says European Space Agency

By being both relatively inexpensive and flexible, Arm-based Raspberry Pi hardware tends to crop up in all manner of places. As well as YPSat demonstrating the cameras, ESA also runs the AstroPi project, in which code can be run on Raspberry Pis onboard the International Space Station (ISS.) NASA has used the computers to protect data [10]captured by the Super Pressure Balloon Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT), and the miniature computers have regularly [11]been put to use by enthusiasts in a range of experiments since their inception, more than a decade ago.

Using Raspberry Pi camera hardware to capture the moment of fairing separation on the very first Ariane 6? Impressive stuff. ®

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[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2024/07/18/ypsat.jpg

[2] https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Technology/ESA_Young_Professionals_Satellites/About_YPSat

[3] https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/10/ariane_6_launch_success_esa/

[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZpmQd@@eIPMoaCk3qbpgSwAAABY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[5] https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Technology/ESA_Young_Professionals_Satellites/YPSat_the_view_from_Ariane_6

[6] https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/10/ariane_6_launch_success_esa/

[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/06/july_9_ariane_6_launch/

[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/29/ariane_6_campaign_begins/

[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/20/esa_ariane_6_ready/

[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/16/scientists_use_raspberry_pi_tech/

[11] https://www.theregister.com/2012/07/17/pi_ascent/

[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/