Show HN: Open-Source International Space Station Tracker ESP32/Arduino for $20

by keyth72on 6/27/2025, 6:34 PMwith 17 comments

International Space Station Tracker on an ESP32 CYD (Cheap Yellow Display) costing $20. Live update over Wifi, touchscreen, backlight power management. Cheap and interesting classroom STEM project. Fully open source.

by consumer451on 6/30/2025, 4:42 PM

This is a complete tangent, but a photographer recently captured what is likely the all-time best shot of the ISS.

https://old.reddit.com/r/spaceporn/comments/1lfgtiw/on_sunda...

by matteasonon 6/30/2025, 4:18 PM

Really neat! If you're interested in adding clouds to your basemap I built a service [0] which generates free, almost-live cloudmaps (with alpha channel or precomposited onto a Blue Marble image) as part of my own ISS tracker project

[0] https://github.com/matteason/live-cloud-maps

by SiempreVierneson 6/30/2025, 5:35 PM

Aaaw, this only displays the position on a screen :( I was hoping for the cool version where a small arm is physically pointing at the ISS.

by coffeecoderson 6/30/2025, 6:36 PM

This looks like a fun project. Any reason for using resistive touch model?

by panki27on 6/30/2025, 3:16 PM

Looks like a fun tinker project. Could be easily extended with a GPS receiver to show your location on the map.

by potsiion 6/30/2025, 5:00 PM

Another variant of the generic:

"Read a REST endpoint via HTTP and draw it on a display with LVGL"

But also funny because OP used two MCUs, when a single ESP32 could do all of this.