Gaming COSMORAMA Space Flight Simulator

[nens86]

Meta Quest VR orbital sim using NASA JEOD/F´ stack

Some of you may remember my FSW 2024 presentation on aerospace-grade
orbital dynamics for consumer VR. The project now has a Meta Quest store page.

Even earlier (2014) I started with a Orbiter mod for the Oculus Rift (Development Kit 1) Thread

Technical stack:

• JEOD (JSC Engineering Orbital Dynamics) for propagation
• F´ flight software framework (Mars Ingenuity heritage)
• SPICE kernels for ephemeris
• Bruneton atmospheric scattering
• Diamond-based terrain LOD with real ASTER elevation data

Architecture:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Lua/LÖVR Layer - UI, rendering, shaders                │
│       ↓ lovr.simulation.* API ↓                         │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  C++ F´ Layer - Components, JEOD/Trick dynamics         │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Running a market validation before committing to full development.
If standalone VR with real orbital mechanics interests you:

Wishlist on the Meta Quest Store Page: https://vr.meta.me/s/238ickSEeAvqGjE

Happy to discuss implementation details.

 

[Abby/Keru2947]

Hey, that MFD looks familiar!

 

[nens86]

That is a great observation. Let me quickly describe what is from Orbiter and what is new:
The cockpit instruments (HUDs, MFDs) and the Delta Glider are inspired by and ported from Orbiter.
The simulation engine, physics, rendering, and VR support are all built from scratch using NASA tools.
Think of it as Orbiter's cockpit experience reimagined on a completely new foundation with VR support.

 

[nens86]

I added a reference to Orbiter in the video description. The store page will receive the reference as well. Store page updated. Thanks.

 

[Lucy]

Meta Quest VR orbital sim using NASA JEOD/F´ stack

Some of you may remember my FSW 2024 presentation on aerospace-grade
orbital dynamics for consumer VR. The project now has a Meta Quest store page.

Even earlier (2014) I started with a Orbiter mod for the Oculus Rift (Development Kit 1) Thread

Technical stack:

• JEOD (JSC Engineering Orbital Dynamics) for propagation
• F´ flight software framework (Mars Ingenuity heritage)
• SPICE kernels for ephemeris
• Bruneton atmospheric scattering
• Diamond-based terrain LOD with real ASTER elevation data

Architecture:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Lua/LÖVR Layer - UI, rendering, shaders                │
│       ↓ lovr.simulation.* API ↓                         │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  C++ F´ Layer - Components, JEOD/Trick dynamics         │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Running a market validation before committing to full development.
If standalone VR with real orbital mechanics interests you:

Wishlist on the Meta Quest Store Page: https://vr.meta.me/s/238ickSEeAvqGjE

Happy to discuss implementation details.

I don't have a meta headset, so I can't interact with this, but I am curious how comfortable this is during high time accel. How's a typical apollo-length mission stack up in terms of comfort against, say, re-entry?

 

[nens86]

I don't have a meta headset, so I can't interact with this, but I am curious how comfortable this is during high time accel. How's a typical apollo-length mission stack up in terms of comfort against, say, re-entry?

Comfort's no issue during time warp itself. Your viewpoint is locked to the cockpit so there's no artificial movement, you just see the scenery outside fast-forwarding. Time warp goes up to 100,000x so you can skip coast phases in seconds.

If the question is more about wearing a headset for a full-length Apollo mission - that's a fair point. Current headsets aren't there yet for 5+ hour sessions, and we're not going to pretend otherwise. We're designing around that with save/load snapshots so you can break a mission into multiple sittings. And we're very much looking forward to lighter headsets coming down the line. Steam Frame looks promising from a comfort perspective.

 

[nens86]

Would you be interested in using existing Orbiter mods or create new mods for this VR space flight simulator?

 

[nens86]

 

[nens86]

Here is the presentation at Flight Software Workshop hosted by:
"The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, The Aerospace Corporation, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the Southwest Research Institute, are the Founding Sponsors of the Flight Software Workshop which was first held in November 2007 at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory."

 

[nens86]