About Me

Welcome to the personal site of Nico Bucher. I am enthusiastic about computers, software and space. Also great nerd for music of all sorts and I always enjoy good food and a glass of wine. I am a software engineer currently busy with embedded software applications of self-driving cars. Previously I was working for the small satellite team at the Institute of Space Systems in Stuttgart were a small team of PhD students built, programmed and launched a small satellite. I grew up in rural southern Germany and studied aerospace engineering at the University of Stuttgart.

I’m also into collecting records. Please have a look at what I have in stock at Discogs.

As a professional software engineer, I am fascinated by the concept of open source. Open source software, today, is the foundation of most meaningful software applications. The quality of open source projects like the Linux kernel, Git, Docker and many more are proof that open source is the way how software should be developed.

As part of wonderful team I was lucky to engage in the launch preparations which took place in the hallowed cosmodrome in Baikonur which is the birthplace of human spaceflight. Not only the first satellite, “Sputnik”, was launched there but also the first human “Juri Gagarin” was launched to explore low earth orbit from this place. Nowadays, astronauts from all over the world know this place and the people living in Baikonur are very aware of the historic relevance of their home town.

Here are some interresting links for further information:

The Flight Software Framework Flying Laptop is running on (open source)
Flying Laptop Twitter Account
Detailed Satellite Description
Current Location

The Launch of Flying Laptop aboard the Kanopus V-IK Cluster Launch.

You can also view my talk about the status of the mission and the open source aspects of our software development efforts.