ISS-Above lights up when a huge space station flies over your location

Via Universe Today comes a pointer to the Kickstarter for ISS-Above by Liam Kennedy. The ISS-Above is a

device that lights up whenever the International Space Station is nearby (that happens more often than you might expect)

[…]

The International Space Station passes overhead most of the populated areas of the world more frequently than you would imagine. If only you knew it was there.

That’s what the ISS-Above does.

It lights up when the ISS is nearby, but that’s not all. It can also TWEET a message to the Space Station and it has its own built-in web server to give you a ton of information about current and future passes.

It’s both an awareness thing, so more people get to know the Space Station is in their sky, and it’s also to let those who are “up there” know that we know and appreciate what they are doing!  

Update: A reader points to a Kickstarter project  in 2011 for a similar ISS flyover device : ISS-Notify by Nathan Bergey — Kickstarter.]

The goal of the Kickstarter is to make the device available to more people. The campaign has already exceeded its goal with over 24 days left.

From Universe Today :

A complete ISS-Above device preloaded with your location is available for kicking in to the Kickstarter for $115. If you just want the memory card with your location and custom Twitter login for sending a Tweet to the ISS, then the price is just $42. There are several other options as well.

8 thoughts on “ISS-Above lights up when a huge space station flies over your location”

    1. Thanks. Vaguely remembered seeing something before about an ISS flyover notification device but assumed it was all the same project. OK to offer a different design but they might mention the previous version.

      1. After posting that I found out that ISS-Notify never shipped, so it makes sense that someone else is trying it. But the ISS-Above guy backed ISS-Notify, so he could at least acknowledge where he got the idea.

  1. I’m the developer of ISS-Above. Yes I am a backer of the (sadly) not yet-appeared (and likely never to appear) ISS-Notify. I had the idea for ISS-Above before ISS-Notify came on to the scene (well in theory anyway) – I even developed my own app on a Windows Phone which was out before the ISS-Notify – It’s called LookUpTnight… it’s still on the Windows Phone App store.. but I don’t do any updates to it.

    I did originally have a mention of ISS-Notify on the Kickstarter – but as I was going through the approval process there were rules about how one Kickstarter could not spam another Kickstarter. I chose then to remove my reference to it – as I did not want it to appear that I am doing any spamming which for all I know could have resulted in my project being pulled.

    If you check the comments on ISS-Notify you will not find any mention of the Kickstarter for ISS-Above – again for the same reason.

    Despite this I do have a few ISS-Notify backers now backing ISS-Above and they are very happy they will finally receive something that actually far exceeds what the ISS-Notify was slated to provide.

    If you have any further questions about the ISS-Above you can contact me via the http://issabove.com web site or via the Kickstarter.

    Thanks

    -Liam

    1. Kickstarter’s rules are to keep people with projects that are currently fundraising from spamming their project everywhere and damaging Kickstarter’s brand. There is no interpretation of their rules that would suggest linking to an old project from a new project to give it credit would qualify as spam.

      1. Ben.. If you want more “backstory” to this please contact me via email. Liam (at) issabove (dot) com

        I’m not sure if you actually know Nathan or simply met him at a conference (I see we have a few mutual friends on Facebook who likely met Nathan at the same place you did). Bottom line.. I’ve had email exchanges with an actual “friend”. I’m not going to share the precise content of those emails…but it gives additional context to my decision.

  2. Ben. I’ve given my reasoning and your certainty about Kickstarter rules doesn’t change anything that I shared. As the project creator and this being my first Kickstarter I’m just not going to risk anything. Thanks

  3. I had a dream, and it was about space, rocket and something like this. but the dream is no more as I must get educated!

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