Spot the Station
See The Space Station Overhead
Free
For anyone who has ever gazed up at the night sky and wondered about the mysteries of the universe, witnessing the International Space Station pass overhead can be an awe-inspiring moment. The Spot the Station mobile app is designed to notify users when the space station is visible overhead from their location. It aims to broaden access and awareness of the station and NASA globally, by providing users with an opportunity to experience the wonder of the space station firsthand. The realization that there are human beings living and working in that tiny dot, orbiting the Earth at a mind-boggling speed of 17,500 miles per hour, is breathtaking. The app includes several helpful features including: 1. 2D & 3D real-time location views of the station 2. Upcoming Sighting Lists with visibility data 3. Augmented Reality (AR) view with compass and trajectory lines embedded into the camera view 4. Up-to-date NASA space station Resources & Blog 5. Privacy Settings 6. Push Notifications when the station is approaching your location.
more Maintenance efforts to ensure security of API calls.
Other bug fixes and third-party software maintenance updates.
1.9.0 20 Mar
- Reorganized the information screens on top of the Home page to improve visibility of the button to open sightings list.
- Replaced "today" and "tomorrow" phrases with actual dates in notifications and sightings list to avoid confusion.
- Optimized the dynamic sizing of the 3D globe view on Home and Tracker pages to improve the globe fit to the screen size in portrait and landscape modes.
- Enabled pinch-to-zoom functionality on the 3D view of the Tracker and Home pages.
- Rearranged UI elements inside the iPhone dynamic island for better visibility of the information in the live activity box.
- Resolved a rare bug that caused the 3D globe on Home page to disappear for a long time after switching between locations.
- Other bug fixes and third-party software maintenance updates.
1.8.0 16/12/2025
- Added the Upcoming Sightings list to the Resources page for ease of access. This page was available via tapping on the Next Sightings List button on the Home page.
- Enabled sharing of an entire Upcoming Sightings list for the selected location. Previously, the sharing option was only available for one sighting at a time.
- Provided the Information overlay with details of the Next Sighting on the AR View page, even when user has not granted permission to use the phone's camera.
- Added a 12-hour option to the preset options for notification times ahead of each sighting opportunity.
- Provided more options for the Duration filter on the Upcoming Sightings list.
- Added a message for the users that have not allowed permissions to access their phone's calendar, which has a link to the phone settings to grant this permission, so that they can add an upcoming sighting opportunity to the calendar.
- Optimized the Sightings List to reduce lag time when there is a larger list of potential sighting opportunities for a location.
- Fixed an error on the Resources > Station Details page, where the dimensions of the station were not changing when user selected Imperial (US) units in the settings.
- Resolved a bug that caused notifications to display "1440 minutes" instead of "24 hours".
- Bug fixes and third-party software maintenance updates.
1.7.0 25/08/2025
* New feature on the Upcoming Sightings page to allow filtering the sightings by cloud cover. Also a new line for each sighting shows the cloud cover percentage. Climatic data is based on hourly estimates, updated once a day for the selected location and may not be accurate.
* New feature in Settings to switch the app units between Metric (default) and Imperial (US) units.
* New feature on the Upcoming Sightings page to open the Past Sightings page that shows the history of the past events for the last 2 weeks at the selected location.
* New feature on the Resources page is the Earth Science Data Resources, which includes links to NASA's Earth Information Center and Eyes on the Earth interactive tool.
* New feature on the Upcoming Sightings page to add each sighting to the phone calendar, so that earlier notifications (more than 2 hours in advance) can be customized through the calendar.
* New feature in Settings to switch the app time format between the 12-hour and 24-hour formats. The default format is according to the device settings.
* New feature on lock screen of iOS devices to show live activity countdown timer for the upcoming sightings for the selected location.
* Added zoom capability to the AR view so that users can zoom in and out using a pinch gesture when capturing pictures or video.
* Updated some of the responses for the Frequently Asked Questions on the Resources page.
* Bug fixes and third-party software maintenance updates.
1.6.0 09/06/2025
* Integrated the updated NOAA WMM2025 model used to calculate the magnetic declination.
* Added Frequently Asked Questions and responses to the Resources page.
* Improved the accuracy and precision of the location names.
* Resolved the issue with late notifications when device was in low battery mode.
* Updated the official NASA YouTube live stream link for the view from the Station.
* Added an alert popup for when the text size is too large to see all options and features of the app.
* Enhanced the visibility of the scroll bar on the Upcoming Sightings page.
* Bug fixes and third-party software maintenance updates.
1.5.0 14/02/2025
* Added a new view option called Sat on the Tracker page, which shows a 3D perspective view of the Station traversing around the Earth.
* Redesigned the first page of Resources to better organize and add new resources.
* Added a new page under Resources called Who is on Station Now, which shows a list of astronauts currently at the Station.
* New Station Videos page under Resources with popular NASA YouTube videos about the Station.
* Based on popular demand, three new languages were added on the Settings page: Portuguese (Brazil), Polish, and Turkish.
* Corrections were made to the translations in French, German, and Spanish languages.
* Added an option to Share the app with others on the Settings page.
* Added a reminder for users of older app versions to download the latest release.
* Bug fixes and third-party software maintenance updates.
1.4.0 01/10/2024
* Added the ability to share each of the upcoming sighting events with others.
* Added more educational articles under the About tab of the Resources page.
* Included an information link on the AR View page that informs users on how to spot the station. The same article is accessible under the About tab of the Resources page.
* Improved the responsive user interface and font sizes when switching between portrait and landscape modes.
* Enhanced the rendering frequency on the AR View to update the position of the station more frequently.
* Updated the tagging of upcoming sighting events in the twilight period; now the twilight period includes the civil and nautical twilights but the astronomical twilight is tagged as night period.
* Resolved an issue that was preventing notification sounds.
* Modified the Spanish, French, and German translations for improved understanding.
* Bug fixes and third-party software maintenance updates.
1.3.1 24/06/2024
* Added an information screen for the AR View, which shows current station details and information about the next sighting.
* Redirects users from notifications to the AR View with the information screen.
* Added a step-by-step tutorial for the first-time users visit the AR View, similar to that for the Home page.
* Included an option in the Settings for users to restart the step-by-step tutorials for the Home and AR View pages.
* Added the exact time of next sighting next to the date inside the Next Sighting box on the home page.
* Included a third filter for Max Height in addition to the Time of Day and Duration filters on the Upcoming Sightings list.
* Improved the design and icons for the bottom navigation menu.
* Bug fixes and third-party software maintenance updates.
* Added Live Stream of the station camera under Resources
1.3.0 24/04/2024
Bug fixes & improvements
1.2.3 01/03/2024
Various improvements
1.2.2 08/12/2023
Various improvements
1.2.1 13/11/2023
Initial public release
1.2 01/11/2023
Maintenance efforts to ensure security of API calls.
Other bug fixes and third-party software maintenance updates.
more Version 1.9.0 20 Mar
Data Not Linked to You The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
Location User Content Diagnostics 