Using HoloLens: NASA's Mixed Reality Program

NASA Shapes the Future of Space Design and Exploration with its Mixed Reality Program (+Video)

Mike Senese | July 19, 2016

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena is a small city of sleek, modern towers propped tight between the San Gabriel Mountains and the dry arroyo landscape of Southern California. Inside, the smartest minds on the planet gather daily to design, build, and launch rockets, satellites, and rovers to explore space and faraway worlds.
My visit here in mid-May is to get a sneak peek at one of the newest rovers, launching for Mars in 2020. It’s a flagship mission, announced in December 2012, a few months after the landing of Curiosity, and will feature a similar but slightly larger six-wheeled craft. JPL, however, doesn’t have a high-tech prototype. Instead, they lead me into a demonstration room, have me put on a Microsoft HoloLens headset, and boot up a CAD projection of the rover. It appears in full scale and fully explorable right in front of me, while they explain that this virtual approach to engineering is not a future part of their organization — it’s happening now.

(NASA Let Us Walk On Mars With HoloLens. May 23, 2016) Source: http://vrscout.com/news/nasa-jpl-hololens-rover/

"The entire floor served as the surface of Mars for our OnSight demo." (OnSight And Protospace: NASA's HoloLens Apps For Exploring Mars. May 24, 2016) Source: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nasa-jpl-hololens-onsight-protospace,31864.html

<more at http://makezine.com/2016/07/19/rockets-rovers-mixed-reality/; related articles and links: https://www.engadget.com/2016/05/23/nasa-hololens-mars-rover-in-mixed-reality/ (+Video) (NASA is building the next Mars rover in mixed reality. The holographic spacecraft is keeping mission 2020 on track. May 23, 2016) and http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nasa-jpl-hololens-onsight-protospace,31864.html (OnSight And Protospace: NASA's HoloLens Apps For Exploring Mars. May 24, 2016)>