Spot The Station Application: Everything about the new NASA App
As is already well known, in the Google Play Store There is usually at least one application for almost every type of goal, task or purpose. And when this purpose has to do with the space science, astronomy and other related areas of studyWell, it is not surprising that there are a sufficient number and variety of applications for all those passionate about Space and the Universe.
And since, every year, during the day December 6, the start of operations of the International Space Station (union of the Zarya and Unity space modules), this year 2023 NASA (North American Space Agency) has launched the «Spot The Station application». As part of the measures, events and facts related to the future and prompt celebration of the 25 anniversary of such an important date in the space field. And in order to allow and provide scholars and those interested in Space with a free, simple and efficient mobile application, to track the International Space Station (ISS) from Earth and be able to see it with the appropriate instruments.
In this way, this great astronomy and space mobile app is now added to many other existing ones in the world. Google Play Store, Such as Celestial Map and Star Tracker, which are constellation apps for Android, which we have already covered previously in past posts.
Also, among the many great and interesting things that we will learn next about the «Spot The Station application» is that it is also available to download and use for free on the Apple Store for use on iOS devices.
Spot The Station Application: Everything about the new NASA App
Spot The Station Application: What is it and what is it for?
To be clear and precise about what this is about new NASA mobile app, which has also been released in order to improve the functionality of the Official website "Spot the Station" which is also its property, by offering additional capabilities and information that expand the ISS monitoring experience, it is worth quoting a small fragment of its official description within the Google Play Store:
The Spot the Station mobile app is designed to notify users when the International Space Station (ISS) is visible from their location. Its goal is to expand access and knowledge of the ISS and NASA globally, giving users the opportunity to experience the wonder of the ISS firsthand.
Watch the International Space Station fly by! It is the third brightest object in the sky and is easy to spot if you know when to look up. NASA's Spot the Station mobile app and website make it easy to know when to see it. Visible to the naked eye, the space station looks like a fast-moving plane, only it flies much higher and travels thousands of miles per hour faster. Spot the Station website
Features
In addition, between technical features or functionalities that we can find and use within this great application we can mention the following:
- Provides 2D and 3D real-time location views of the ISS (ISS).
- Includes excellent and accurate lists of upcoming sightings with visibility data.
- It features an Augmented Reality (AR) View with compass and trajectory lines integrated into the camera view.
- It has easy access to resources and additional information (articles and news) about the ISS
- Includes an excellent privacy settings section
- Provides automatic notifications when the ISS approaches our current or predefined location.
While, other interesting and useful technical data about it are that:
- For Android it is available from version 7.0 onwards with a size of 44 MB for the current version 1.2.1.
- For iOS/iPadOS it is available from version 13.0 onwards with a size of 68.4 for the current version 1.2.1.
- It is available in Spanish, German, French, Hindi, English, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Russian, Swedish and Ukrainian.
In short, we are sure that, whether you are an independent enthusiast or a professional space scholar, this wonderful, modern and innovative «Spot The Station application» created by NASA, and more specifically by the ISS Program of the NASA Space Operations Mission Directorate and the Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation, it will be very useful to achieve the objective of see the International Space Station floating in space.
Finally, it is worth highlighting that, given that It is created by NASA and is open source, it can be used with great confidence and security. And even modified and customized at the source code level if necessary.