Summary

Imagine an Earth-orbiting satellite, or an Earth-to-Moon mission that requires an orbital transfer maneuver, or a spacecraft in a cyclical orbit around Earth and Mars, or a deep space probe that traverses the asteroid belt. Understanding and visualizing sophisticated space missions isn’t easy! Your challenge is to create an interactive, virtual reality application that enables users to visualize a space mission including the mission concept, orbital trajectories, and mission timeline.

Background

Space missions take on many different forms to explore numerous types of destinations—from Earth orbit to deep space. But what is the best way to present the conceptual design of a space mission? In the past, presentations about missions included slides with images of the spacecraft and 2D drawings of the orbital trajectory, or path, that the spacecraft would follow to get to the destination. More recently, computer-generated 3D animations depict a spacecraft moving along the orbital trajectory.

What if the space mission were presented in a virtual reality model embedded within a webpage? People could interact with the virtual model to examine the mission from different angles. For example, users could control how they view a 3D spacecraft model (e.g., they could rotate, pan over, or zoom in/out). More advanced virtual models could allow the user to increase or decrease the velocity and control the direction of the virtual model spacecraft to enable it to change orbital trajectories (i.e., to perform orbital maneuvers). . A digital globe could represent a planet or moon and provide context for visualizing orbital trajectories. A virtual orrery (a model of the solar system) could provide context for visualizing deep space missions.

Today, numerous tools and applications are widely available to enable new ways to depict mission information. Free open-source digital globes and web graphs language (WebGL) code libraries are available on the Internet. NASA’s Web WorldWind, which is a digital globe, is freely available, as is the agency’s General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT), which can generate a time series of Cartesian coordinates. While general-purpose, free, open-source digital globes exist, there isn’t a comparable virtual orrery. A reusable virtual orrery would enable visualization of deep space missions within a web browser.

Objectives

Your challenge is to create an interactive, virtual reality application within a web browser that enables users to visualize a space mission including the mission concept, orbital trajectories, and mission timeline. Don’t forget to embed your space mission visualization app in a web page and deploy that web page on a free web hosting service so that your solution is available to all.

Participation in this Space Apps challenge can give your team hands-on experience using NASA code for orbital trajectory visualization, working with digital globes or 3D graphics code libraries, and designing and deploying a web app. This challenge offers beginner, intermediate, and advanced options for you to consider, depending on your team members’ programming skill levels (see Potential Considerations).

Potential Considerations

You may (but are not required to) consider the following:

This challenge can be addressed in many ways by teams with varying levels of expertise including, but not limited to the following examples.
Beginner Level – Learn to use GMAT or design a 3D Elliptical Orbit
- The Resources section includes a link to a three-part tutorial series on web-based space mission visualization and how to design an elliptical orbit. The tutorial series explains how to use GMAT to generate a time series of 3D Cartesian coordinates and how to plot the orbital trajectory with the X3D code library. A variety of other 3D graphics code libraries are available on the Internet (see the Resources section for a list of key terms and phrases to help you find them).
Intermediate – Visualize orbital trajectories using a digital globe
- Teams with intermediate programming skills could use a digital globe and design an orbital trajectory around Earth. The Resources section provides a link to NASA’s Web WorldWind digital globe, which has an Application Programming Interface (API) for adding shapes to layers. The list of key words in the Resources section can help you search for other free digital globes.
Intermediate – Create a virtual orrery and visualize an Earth-Mars cycler
- The concept of an Earth-Mars cycler is a spaceship that follows an orbital trajectory around Earth and Mars. This cyclical trajectory could include a second spaceship that is 180 degrees out of phase with the first spaceship. Think of the Earth-Mars cyclers as a public transportation system wherein crews would depart from Earth orbit to rendezvous with the cycler and depart from the cycler to land on Mars. Teams with intermediate programming skills could use a 3D graphics code library to create a model of our solar system; the model doesn’t have to depict the complete solar system. The Resources section provides links to existing orreries, including an ontology-driven orrery that presents the inner solar system and an orrery implemented in the R programming language. Like the orrery implemented in the R demonstration, your model could be interactive, but not animated. Your model could present the path between the two planets with 3D object(s) to represent the spaceship(s). Or you could develop a more advanced version consisting of an animated orrery, where the inner solar system planets orbit the Sun and the orbital trajectory moves with Earth and Mars.
Advanced – Create a virtual orrery and design deep space missions that include a planetary fly-by
- A virtual orrery could include an asteroid belt. The Resources section provides a link to an orrery that contains Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHA). A deep space probe mission’s trajectory could apply a slingshot maneuver to pick-up momentum by passing by planets such as Mars or Venus. The Resources section also includes a link to a document about a Web-based Space Mission Visualization System, which provides a vision for a general purpose virtual orrery for visualizing deep space missions. That document describes a variety of features that could be included in a virtual orrery. Your solution could also potentially feature a function for uploading a data file that provides a time series of Cartesian coordinates for the trajectory. One of the demonstrations in the three-part tutorial on web-based mission visualization listed in the Resources section includes a function for uploading a data file.
A link to GMAT and a tutorial for using GMAT to visualize a space mission trajectory are available in the Resources section. The Resources section also provides search terms and phrases to help your team find applications and code libraries that are not hosted on a NASA website, and additional resources on the Internet.
To ensure NASA judges can access your team’s product, embed it in a web page that is hosted on a free web hosting service (see Resources).

For data and resources related to this challenge, refer to the Resources tab at the top of the page.

2023 NASA Space Apps Challenge

Visualize a Space Mission Using Virtual Reality