We all love Buzz Aldrin for his commitment to do something for space exploration. The second man on the moon made a “moon walk” for Dancing with the Stars back in 2010. He is the author of several books, with a cheerful 86-year-old focus on Mars in the last two epistles (Mission to Mars and Welcome to Mars).
And now he walked on Mars. Virtually, of course.
Aldrin is part of the new exposure at Kennedy Space Center NASA. And her name is quite appropriate: “Destination: Mars”. NASA decided that as a hologram, it would help to revive the barren landscape, or as he described it, painted in red. And finally, this is a chance for the public to get an idea of the new virtual reality software that the agency uses to study the Red Planet.
“In recent years, Buzz Aldrin has focused his life on promoting intelligence in general and specifically to Mars,” said Jeff Norris, lead expert on innovative flight operations at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, in an interview with Discovery News.
“We, on the other hand, tried to cope with the fact (this concerns the exhibition) that Mars is terribly empty, and wanted to get a guide,” he added. “People believe that they should have a person who could explain to them and demonstrate some environmental facts, as well as convey the emotions of this experience to study Mars.”
The exhibit is a demonstration of the OnSight platform, which NASA is beginning to use to control the Curiosity rover (Curiosity). A small group of test engineers equipped with the Microsoft HoloLens headset periodically “meet” on Mars, located in the same place as Curiosity. Norris said that in this way they will receive early feedback, which will make it easier to see where Curiosity should move on.
“We are mastering what we need to master, so that we can scale the number of scientists who use OnSight and support the rover in the coming months, and for the next mission to Mars 2020,” said Norris. There is another senior rover on Mars - Opportunity (Opportunity), but so far no one plans to include it in the program, although it is technically feasible, he added.
Virtual reality is also an invasion of other areas of space. Astronauts on the International Space Station recently made a check on Sidekick operations, which allows controllers on the ground to guide astronauts in certain procedures (by observing their shoulders, or by providing holographic diagrams).
The first tests confirmed that the device can communicate with the ground (including via Skype calls), tracking its position inside the space station, as well as drawing holographic annotations. There is not yet an exact date for moving it into working condition, but HoloLens are at the station and are waiting for their time to come. HoloLens was also tested in the Aquarius submarine laboratory (Aquarius) last year as part of the NEEMO project, in which astronauts spend a couple of weeks underwater to improve various types of space research techniques (for example, for the ISS or even landing on an asteroid).
Less well known is the use of HoloLens for an application called ProtoSpace, used to visualize spacecraft designs. Some of the missions use it for the rover, including the Mars 2020 mission and the future Europa Orbiter, which is expected to move to Jupiter’s satellite for several decades.
