New Delhi: NASA is planning to upgrade its cutting-edge Cold Atom Lab aboard the International Space Station (ISS) with mixed reality technology. This is because mixed reality technology can help with repairs and upgrades on the lab.
Earlier this year, NASA astronaut Megan McArthur had tested the use of a Microsoft HoloLens, which is a mixed reality headset, to conduct experiments in the Cold Atom Lab. The decision to upgrade the ISS with mixed reality comes amid Facebook's ongoing plans to be identified as a ‘metaverse’ company, which is also an example of mixed reality.
What Is Mixed Reality?
Mixed Reality is a blend of physical and digital worlds, unlocking natural and intuitive 3D human, computer, and environment interactions. This new reality is based on advancements in computer vision, graphical processing, display technologies, input systems, and cloud computing. The term Mixed Reality was introduced in a 1994 paper by Paul Milgram and Fumio Kishino, "A Taxonomy of Mixed Reality Visual Displays".
Mixed reality is the next wave in computing followed by mainframes, PCs, and smartphones. Mixed reality is going mainstream for consumers and businesses. It liberates us from screen-bound experiences, by offering interactions with data in our living spaces. People may not even realize that the Augmented Reality filters they use on Instagram are Mixed Reality experiences.
A combination of stunning holographic representations of people, holographic 3D models and the real world around them will take user experiences of Mixed Reality to the next level.
Cold Atom Lab And Mixed Reality
NASA's Cold Atom Lab is a first-of-its kind physics laboratory operating in Earth orbit. It hosts experiments exploring the fundamental nature of atoms by cooling them down to nearly absolute zero. Zero Kelvin is the coldest temperature matter can reach. The laboratory is about the size of a mini-fridge, and the ultracold atoms provide a window to the quantum realm, a term frequently used in Marvel movies, to carry out time travel. In reality, inside the quantum realm, matter exhibits unusual behaviours, which support modern technologies.
NASA astronaut Christina Koch, in 2020, installed upgraded hardware in Cold Atom Lab, which added new capabilities to the novel facility.
NASA wants to increase the efficiency of activities on Cold Atom Lab, and is planning a series of additional upgrades. A Microsoft HoloLens, which is a mixed reality headset, also known as augmented reality headset, was successfully tested on the ISS earlier this year.
Megan McArthur, on July 15, used the AR headset while replacing a piece of hardware inside Cold Atom Lab. The mixed reality headset enabled the facility to produce ultracold potassium atoms, along with rubidium atoms, which have been used in the Cold Atom Lab ever since its operation started in 2018.
The Microsoft HoloLens allowed McArthur to see the space around her, as well as digital displays in her field of view. There is a small forward-facing camera on the headset, which allows members of the Cold Atom Lab team in the Earth Orbiting Missions Operations Center at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to watch on large screens everything McArthur was looking at. This was much more efficient than the 2020 activity with Koch, where the Earth-based team could see a live-feed only from a fixed camera positioned behind or above the astronaut, as a result of which the view of the hardware was obscured.
The transparent lenses on HoloLens blend the virtual and real worlds together. HoloLens appear like wraparound sunglasses, and are much better than virtual reality headsets. Mixed reality makes it easier for an astronaut to perform a task alone.
Using mixed reality technology, the team on Earth guided McArthur towards the hardware she must repair, by pointing it with an arrow, which would remain in position even if she moved her head. She also saw virtual graphic annotations, such as text and arrows, in her field of view.
McArthur's hardware replacement activity in the Cold Atom Lab not only marked the first use of a mixed reality headset to improve live interaction between an astronaut and engineers on Earth, but also the first use of mixed reality to repair a science experiment on the ISS. It took six months to prepare for the activity.
Kamal Oudrhiri, Cold Atom Lab's Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said the activity was a perfect demonstration of how Cold Atom Lab and quantum science can take advantage of mixed reality technology, and can provide additional capabilities for astronauts to complete complex tasks, according to a NASA statement.
Mixed Reality And Quantum Mechanics
Transistors and microchips have been developed due to discoveries in quantum science, such as the fact that atoms behave like particles as well as waves.
In the Cold Atom Lab, which is the first quantum science facility in Earth orbit, atoms are cooled so that they move slower, and can be studied easily. Ultracold atoms can form a fifth state of matter, known as the Bose-Einstein condensate.
Upgrading the Cold Atom Lab with mixed reality will open up research capabilities in the microgravity environment, and help astronauts get answers to their questions.
Jason Williams, Cold Atom Lab's Project scientist, said the repair activity on ISS is important because it enables scientists to perform dozens of new experiments in quantum chemistry and fundamental physics, and to study potassium gases in Cold Atom Lab. This is possible using gases where the atoms interact with each other in interesting ways at extremely low temperatures, achievable only in microgravity, he added.
Williams explained that their goal was to convert Cold Atom Lab into an evolving science facility, where astronauts can continue their research, and add new hardware capabilities, without the need to launch new facilities for every step. This is possible with a mixed reality upgrade.
Future upgrades to Cold Atom Lab will enable real-time interactions between astronauts on the station and team members on Earth. Jim Kellogg, launch vehicle and space station integration lead for Cold Atom Lab at JPL, said HoloLens could be very useful for upgrading the Lab with mixed reality.