PaleBlue - Vogue

With PaleBlue we created a multi-user astronaut training environment for the European Space Agency (ESA) in the Unity 3D engine. It simulates the International Space Station (ISS) and is used to prepare astronauts for their stay using virtual reality (VR).

While in VR, the user will experience full physics-based zero-G while sitting on a chair. When you see yourself floating in zero-gravity, you soon forget that you are actually still on earth under in the influence of gravity. You can move around by grabbing and pushing yourself just like you would in the real ISS. When it is time to do some experiments, you can dock yourself with your feet on a rail and use your hand without floating away.

The simulation has been validated using a parabolic flight to verify if the motions are aligned with a real weightless environment. In order to do this verifications we also performed a large number of tests with VR tracking systems to test their compatibility with a zero-gravity environment.

Currently we are preparing a similar simulator for the Lunar Gateway, this time using the Unreal 3D engine.