NASA has announced a partnership with Epic Games , thereby expressing a desire to join the metaverse. Epic Games, NASA and Buendea jointly organized a competition to create a metaverse simulator with the theme of Mars.
The contest was made public on the crowdsourcing platform Herox, which said: “The task of the developers is to help NASA create “resources and augmented reality (XR) scenarios for use by NASA in research on activities on the surface of Mars.”
NASA has placed great hopes on this contest . Moreover, developers will provide tools for space missions in the coming years. The development of the Martian metaverse will mark the beginning of a major space mission, as the US plans to land on the surface of Mars in 2040. NASA believes that the technologies of the developing metaverse can greatly help the mission.
NASA often holds competitions for the public. And the upcoming competition involves a cash prize of up to $70,000.
“Developers can use Unreal Engine to create realistic simulation scenarios to help prepare NASA for future missions to the Moon or Mars. Whether you’re a game designer, architect, hobbyist or scientist, anyone can design with UE5. And we can’t wait to see what exciting simulations the community comes up with,” said Seb Lohse, Director of Unreal Engine Simulation at Epic Games.
Representatives of the parties also explained how the competition for the creation of the Martian metaverse will be held. Virtual reality is a modern tool used in everything from driver training to Formula 1 driving. At a low cost, this tool allows users to have a top-level learning experience. It provides an immersive experience that makes this an effective tool.
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NASA plans to use Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5 to create a realistic metaverse environment. As mentioned above, Buendea will also play an important role in the process ahead. This is a unique group of developers dedicated to solving the problems of augmented reality (XR) graphical modeling.
The challenge is to populate an already running metaverse called MarsXR. This is a model of Mars with an identical 400 km2 Martian landscape and a natural regime of day and night. For the competition, participants will need to consider the following points:
- Mars follows a similar terrestrial daily cycle and revolves around the sun once every 24 hours and 39 minutes;
- Martian days are abbreviated as “sol”;
- Participants with access to NASA Mars XR will be able to use rovers, spacesuits and more;
- The tasks of the competition are divided into categories: creating a camp, scientific research, maintenance, research, stand out from other participants in the competition.
