Innovative App

The development of NASA’s custom Spot the Station mobile app was part of a collaborative and innovative technological project with Callentis Consulting Group and Ensemble Consultancy. NASA enlists companies to crowdsource ideas and solutions to advance the agency’s mission using an Open Innovation Services contract vehicle known as NOIS2. As a NOIS2 IDIQ vendor, Ensemble hired Callentis to complete the development, testing, and maintenance of Spot the Station mobile app. Callentis is an Austin-based woman-owned small business that incorporates data, design and software into customized solutions.

Callentis was selected among 12 contender software agencies to develop a completely customized application utilizing augmented reality and interactive map visualizations. Tracking the trajectory of the International Space Station to notify users when the station is nearby, Spot the Station allows users to stargaze and observe the movement of the space station using an AR tool to overlay its trajectory with the phone’s camera view.

Collaborative Effort

"Collaborating with the bright minds at NASA on the Spot the Station app has been an incredible experience for our team. We’ve learned a significant amount in working with a brand as big as NASA on a cutting-edge project that aims to inspire and educate, empowering people worldwide to experience the awe-inspiring sight of the space station passing overhead,” said Andrew Drach, co-founder and President of Callentis. “This project is a testament to how custom software helps solve some of the greatest challenges society faces — and it exemplifies our dedication to delivering cutting-edge solutions that tackle unique challenges across diverse industries. From space exploration to health care, education and beyond, custom software solutions truly have the power to transform our world."

The custom Spot the Station app provides a list of the upcoming station sighting opportunities for the user-selected locations and allows users to receive custom notifications for selected sightings. 2D and 3D interactive maps enable users to explore the current path of the space station and its trajectory across the globe. The app also provides resources such as the latest news, informative background information and other details about the station.

Callentis developed the open-source React Native code for both the front and back ends, which is shared between the iOS and Android versions. The general public can submit updates to the open-source code repository, which is managed and maintained by Callentis engineers under NASA’s GitHub account.

"Helping create the Spot the Station app was an exciting endeavor that pushed our creative boundaries. Every user experience unlocked by this application is made possible through the efficient back-end code developed by our team to receive data from the space station, calculate its live trajectory and current spatial position relevant to the user-provided location and produce a list of future sighting opportunities, all in an almost real-time manner," said Monika Drach, Founder and CEO of Callentis. "The transformative application delivers this assortment of sighting opportunities according to the station’s position above the horizon and lighting conditions (daylight, nighttime or twilight) of each location at the time of station passing. Our team's dedication to crafting an engaging and visually striking user experience reflects the innovative spirit of Callentis."

Coinciding with the 23rd anniversary of the International Space Station, Callentis contributions to the Spot the Station mobile app help support the ISS's legacy of innovation and exploration that it has embodied for the last two decades.

Founded in 2016, Callentis is a small-by-design agency specializing in creating customized and intuitive solutions tailored to the unique needs of businesses across industries. Callentis has successfully delivered over 80 digital products, including a customized third-party logistics platform for expedited delivery of perishable items and an AI-powered federated machine learning platform that enables data scientists to work on sensitive data more securely and efficiently.

For more information about how Callentis creates custom software solutions to elevate businesses across industries, please visit https://callentis.io/software/.

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Innovative App

NASA's official press release for the launch of the Spot The Station app.

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Collaborative Effort

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