NASA astronauts to blast into space with Microsoft ‘HoloLens’ virtual reality

NASA astronauts to blast into space with Microsoft ‘HoloLens’ virtual reality

Project Sidekick will use HoloLens to help astronauts better operating aboard the International Space Station, and it could be used in a future Mars mission.

NASA astronauts will have a fancy new gadget on hand when they head to the International Space Station soon: Microsoft’s new HoloLens virtual reality system.

It’s part of what is called Project Sidekick, and it involves a collaboration between Microsoft’s HoloLens and NASA that hopefully will result in speedier repairs and research aboard the ISS, according to a Telegraph report.

In the future, it could even be used for a mission to Mars or an asteroid, according to the report.

Two pairs of the headset will be on board when astronauts blast off for the ISS on Sunday. HoloLens will undergo a testing period, and then hopefully astronauts will start using the technology for operations by the end of 2015.

So how will the crew use them? HoloLens will let a crew member that is wearing the system beam the view he or she has to experts who are on the ground, allowing them to coach the astronauts through sensitive and complicated operations. They can even draw over the astronaut’s view.

In addition, the software will be able to put holographic pictures on top of the astronaut’s field of vision. This will allow training to go much more quickly than in the past.

It will be on the ISS that NASA will be able to really see what HoloLens can do, but the agency has its eyes on a much bigger prize: Mars. NASA thinks that this new technology could help future explorers in their quest to explore the Red Planet.

There are other virtual reality headsets that are just entering the market along with HoloLens, including Facebook’s Oculus Rift and PlayStation’s Project Morpheus.

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