Reaching for the stars: How a Golden Grot Awards winner monitors the International Space Station with Grafana

Like many young kids, Ruben Fernandez grew up wanting to go to space. And while he ended up becoming an engineer instead of an astronaut, his passion for both has led him to yet another award-winning Grafana dashboard.

Ruben is the winner of the 2025 Golden Grot Awards in the personal category, making him our first two-time winner. The principal engineer at Dell Technologies won last year with a dashboard narrowly focused on navigating his daily commute in Atlanta; this year’s entry went bigger—much, much bigger.

Ruben built a dashboard to monitor the International Space Station (ISS), tracking all sorts of real-time data and a live feed so he can relive those boyhood dreams right here on Earth.

“I’ve always been passionate about space,” Ruben said. “I’ve always wanted to be an astronaut and fly and go to space, so Grafana gave me the opportunity of putting together my passion and hobby.”

Watch the video below to hear directly from Ruben, or keep reading to learn more about his award-winning dashboard.

A view from above

In a panel atop his dashboard, Ruben describes it as a “comprehensive and interactive” platform for tracking ISS, with “detailed insights into the ISS’s current location, upcoming sighting opportunities, crew information, and spacecraft docking status, making it an essential tool for space enthusiasts and professionals alike.” 

He’s particularly happy with the pairing of the ISS live stream with all the other real-time data about the spacecraft. 

“I love my dashboard because you have the video that is showing you something that is real, that you can compare with the panels that I build around it,” Ruben said. “‘Where is the station right now?’ ‘What is passing by?’ ‘Is it day or is it night?’ So how you package that together really makes people stay in front of the data and watch for hours.”

There’s a widget in the dashboard where you can enter your location and know when the space station is passing by, so you can see as it beams images of familiar landscapes from 250 miles above.

“It makes me feel that I’m right there,” he said. “And when I see the area that it is passing by and recognize, ‘Oh, wow, this is this island, this is this country.’ And it’s true, that’s what the panel is telling you. And yes, for me, space is always going to be a dream, so giving me the feeling that I’m on this station is amazing.”

He’s even included information about the crew onboard the station.

“For a while it was just the tracking, but then I thought about the astronauts,” Ruben said. “It’s not just the station moving around. There are people inside working there risking their lives with my same dreams, right, of being an astronaut, so I decided to add that.” 

Appreciation from a two-time winner

Ruben was introduced to Grafana three years ago when he joined Dell as a DevOps engineer. And while he still uses it in his current role, he has become passionate about Grafana as a hobbyist, too—whether he’s trying to navigate the local highways or the Milky Way.

“It means a lot,” he said. “To win this award, it means what I’m doing is something that the users like, and the community likes, and Grafana [Labs] likes, so that’s the great thing about winning.”

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