IAT 445 Immersive Environment
Satellite
Damage
Recover, Repair, Repurpose
About the project
We want to bring awareness to the scale of the trash that is floating around Earth’s orbit, and there's only one potential way that this problem can be resolved. The objective during the experience is to travel from satellite to satellite, checking on their general wellbeing, and decide if they would need any care and maintenance (refueling, repair, or recycling). The user is then in charge of fixing said satellites with the necessary components.
Core desired user experience
Our target audience is people who're interested in exploring space. They can learn the cause and effect of space trash. They could also experience how to deal with it, and how to prevent it from living on Earth.
Players should walk out with more knowledge about space clutters; how it can potentially get worse in the future; and what are the potential solutions for this issue. Through our designed experience, we hope to invoke feelings of awe in space, and potentially disappointment or anxiety when dealing with space debris.
By using VR, we can allow users to become embodied as an astronaut and take a trip to space. This allows users to see a new perspective on space trash and also interact with it directly.
Our project addresses the real-world problem of space trash by bringing awareness. It gives players the opportunity to actually interact with defunct satellites, something that the average person doesn’t get to see every day. We also address the issue by presenting a possible solution, which would be maintaining satellites and removing satellites deemed beyond repairable.
Vision Statement
To avoid creating more space trash/debris, you are in charge of doing maintenance on satellites in your orbit. The satellites can come with a variety of different needs: some just need refueling, and others will need repairs that vary in difficulty. The satellites that can no longer be repaired can instead be recycled to provide parts for other satellites. To create a clearer future for space and for humanity, you become the janitor space.
Goal /Differentiator
The goal of the project is to bring awareness to the issue of space trash and present a possible solution to the problem. We want to give users an opportunity to actually interact with space trash and seem like they are making a positive difference in the simulated world.
Theme(s) of project
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Space debris/clutter - learning experience
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Awe-inspiring/perceived vastness - Transformative experience
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Isolation - empathetic experience
Narrative/Story
Sent to space on an initiative to reduce space junk created by human activities, an astronaut is tasked with fixing satellites in orbit, repairing and refueling satellites to varying degrees of difficulty. A possible narrative includes a solar flare destroying various satellites that the astronaut must fix.
Innovation
Our project gives the player the visual and auditory experience of what it could be like working on a space station and fixing satellites. This type of experience is exciting as going to space is not widely available to the majority of people and fixing satellites is an interesting and inviting challenge.
Our project aims to teach users about the dangers of space debris and how the accumulation of space debris in Earth’s orbit is becoming increasingly harmful for our planet. We hope that through our experience, players will gain a better understanding of space debris and become more mindful of living sustainably.
Because space is currently intangible to the current human population, our VR project gives players the opportunity to experience space, something that would not be possible in the real world.
VR mechanics & Physical Rig
Envisioned physical setup
We are envisioning a play area walled off by a curtain. The play space will be decorated to resemble space or a spacecraft. Players will enter the area and put on their “space gear”, which consists of an HMD, hand controllers, and a backpack. In the narrative, the play area is the vessel that takes the player into space.
Locomotion technique
We are deciding to use a hybrid of teleportation and joystick-controlled movement, most likely with teleportation being used in the interior of the spaceship and joystick movement used for the space walk. Teleportation works well in the interior because there is a floor, and it is one of the least disorienting forms of locomotion. And since there is no floor in space, we are opting to use joystick movement with care to reduce simulator sickness.