Lunar orbit and landing site visualization
The Challenge
The Vision for Space Exploration calls for NASA to design and build new spacecraft that will return humans to the moon by 2020, and blaze a trail to Mars and beyond.
To support this vision, the Integrated Modeling and Simulation (IM&S) project aims to develop the next generation collaborative engineering environment, complete with distributed engineering capabilities, integrated analysis tools, and interactive web graphics. Engineers on the IM&S team were tasked with leveraging IM&S capabilities to support an orbital mechanics analysis for a lunar mission study. One step in the analysis process was to understand the spacecraft performance requirements given a list of preferred landing sites and other mission constraints.
The Solution
An interactive lunar globe was created to show 7 landing sites, contour lines depicting the energy required to reach a given site, and the optimal lunar orbit orientation to meet the mission constraints. Activation of the lunar globe rotation shows the change of the angle between the landing site latitude and the orbit plane. A heads-up-display was used to embed straightforward interface elements.
X3D technology enabled this web application to be rapidly developed, easily deployed, and well positioned to interface with collaboration systems utilizing XML messaging and web interfaces. Future applications will leverage the Scene Access Interface to automate the process of building scenes using analysis results, simulation data or other telemetry.
The hi resolution screenshots show:
- Lunar Parking Orbit Visualization: An interactive lunar map with 7 landing sites. Map contours depict energy required to reach the landing sites under certain conditions. Landing site markers are linked to the orbit visualization scene.
- Site #1 Aristarchus Plateau: The optimal orbit for a mission that requires the capability to depart the moon anytime during a 7 day stay. Animation of the scene shows how the lunar rotation moves the landing site relative to the orbit plane. Near day 6 the ascent trajectory is optimum. Beyond 7 days the energy required to depart the moon grows dramatically - as the angle between the landing site latitude and the orbit plane rapidly increases.