[G01-P03] STEAM Engagement with NASA’s Solar System Treks
Keywords:STEAM, Education, Outreach, Planetary Science, NASA, JAXA
NASA's Solar System Treks (https://trek.nasa.gov) online portals provide web-based suites of interactive visualization and analysis tools to enable mission planners, planetary scientists, students, and the general public to access mapped data products from past and current missions for a growing number of planetary bodies. These portals are being used for site selection and analysis by NASA and its international and commercial partners supporting upcoming missions. The portals offer great benefits for science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) education and public outreach, providing access to data from a wide range of instruments aboard a variety of past and current missions. As a component of NASA's Science Activation Infrastructure, they are available as resources for NASA STEAM programs, and to the greater STEAM community. As new missions are planned to a variety of planetary bodies, these tools facilitate public understanding of the missions and engage the public in the process of identifying and selecting where these missions will land.
During the past year, significant changes have been made to The Solar System Treks suite. New portals have been added and portals for a range of additional bodies are now in development. New visualization and analysis tools are being integrated. New data products have been ingested and new means of generating specific data products including image mosaics and DEMs have been implemented.
As of early 2020, there are seven web portals in the program available to the public. This expanded list includes portals for the Moon, Mars, Vesta, Ceres, and Titan. Icy Moons Trek features seven of Saturn’s smaller icy moons. The latest addition is the new Mercury Trek portal, developed in collaboration with JAXA in support of its role in the BepiColombo mission. Two new portals are scheduled for release this spring and will be showcased at JpGU: Ryugu Trek supports JAXA’s Hayabusa2 mission and Bennu Trek supports NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission. In addition, Phobos Trek, focusing on Mars’ larger moon, is currently under development in support of JAXA’s planned MMX mission. Interfaces for the Mercury, Ryugu, and Phobos portals are being internationalized with main interface controls offered in both English and Japanese. All of the portals are unified under a new project home site with supporting content. As web-based toolsets, the portals do not require users to purchase or install any software beyond current web browsers.
The portals provide analysis tools for measurement and study of planetary terrain, allowing data to be layered and adjusted to optimize visualization. Visualizations are easily stored and shared. The portals provide interactive 3D visualization capabilities, allowing users to fly over the terrains of other worlds. Users have the ability to select terrain for generation of STL/OBJ files that can be directed to 3D printers. Such 3D prints are valuable tools in museums, public exhibits, and classrooms - especially for the visually impaired. Particularly popular is the ability for users to draw any path they want across a planetary surface using the browser interface. The system returns a QR code which the user scans into their smartphone, places their phone in an inexpensive pair of Cardboard-compatible goggles, and flies whatever path they drew in virtual reality. The program supports additional clients, web services, and APIs facilitating dissemination of planetary data to external applications and venues such as planetariums. NASA challenges and hackathons also provide members of the software development community opportunities to participate in tool development and leverage data from the portals.
While we are expanding the number of worlds covered by the project, we are paying special attention to the Moon and enhancing Moon Trek’s capabilities supporting upcoming human and robotic missions to the Moon.
During the past year, significant changes have been made to The Solar System Treks suite. New portals have been added and portals for a range of additional bodies are now in development. New visualization and analysis tools are being integrated. New data products have been ingested and new means of generating specific data products including image mosaics and DEMs have been implemented.
As of early 2020, there are seven web portals in the program available to the public. This expanded list includes portals for the Moon, Mars, Vesta, Ceres, and Titan. Icy Moons Trek features seven of Saturn’s smaller icy moons. The latest addition is the new Mercury Trek portal, developed in collaboration with JAXA in support of its role in the BepiColombo mission. Two new portals are scheduled for release this spring and will be showcased at JpGU: Ryugu Trek supports JAXA’s Hayabusa2 mission and Bennu Trek supports NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission. In addition, Phobos Trek, focusing on Mars’ larger moon, is currently under development in support of JAXA’s planned MMX mission. Interfaces for the Mercury, Ryugu, and Phobos portals are being internationalized with main interface controls offered in both English and Japanese. All of the portals are unified under a new project home site with supporting content. As web-based toolsets, the portals do not require users to purchase or install any software beyond current web browsers.
The portals provide analysis tools for measurement and study of planetary terrain, allowing data to be layered and adjusted to optimize visualization. Visualizations are easily stored and shared. The portals provide interactive 3D visualization capabilities, allowing users to fly over the terrains of other worlds. Users have the ability to select terrain for generation of STL/OBJ files that can be directed to 3D printers. Such 3D prints are valuable tools in museums, public exhibits, and classrooms - especially for the visually impaired. Particularly popular is the ability for users to draw any path they want across a planetary surface using the browser interface. The system returns a QR code which the user scans into their smartphone, places their phone in an inexpensive pair of Cardboard-compatible goggles, and flies whatever path they drew in virtual reality. The program supports additional clients, web services, and APIs facilitating dissemination of planetary data to external applications and venues such as planetariums. NASA challenges and hackathons also provide members of the software development community opportunities to participate in tool development and leverage data from the portals.
While we are expanding the number of worlds covered by the project, we are paying special attention to the Moon and enhancing Moon Trek’s capabilities supporting upcoming human and robotic missions to the Moon.