Category: Other Worlds and Tech

Space Sunday: BepiColombo and giant planets

Posted on by Inara Pey
An Ariane 5 rocket carrying the European-Japanese BepiColombo mission to Mercury rises from the pad at the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana on the 19th October, 2018 (local / 20th October, 2018 GMT). Credit: ESA-CNES-Arianespace

At 01:45 GMT on Saturday, October 19th, 2018, the European / Japanese BepiColumbo mission lifted-off from the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana at the start of a 7-year voyage to Mercury, the innermost planet of the solar system.

Named after Giuseppe “Bepi” Colombo, an Italian scientist, mathematician and engineer, who took a particular interest in Mercury, and first formulated the use of the gravity-assist as a part of an interplanetary mission (Mariner 10, 1973/75).

The mission actually comprises four elements. There are two individual satellites, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and Mio (Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter, MMO), a propulsion / power unit called the  Mercury Transfer Module (MTM) and a Sun shield designed to protect the more sensitive instruments on Mio.

BepiColombo elements (l to r) Mercury Transfer Module (MTM) with solar panels folded; Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) also with solar panel stowed; sun shield and vehicle interface; Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO). Credit; ESA

Built by the European Space Agency, MPO weighs 1,150 kg (2,540 lb), and carries a payload of 11 instruments, comprising cameras, spectrometers (IR, UV, X-ray, γ-ray, neutron), a radiometer, a laser altimeter, a magnetometer, particle analysers, a Ka-band transponder, and an accelerometer. It also carries the smaller Mio, and will supply it with power until such time as the two separate once in orbit around Mercury.

Mio, built primarily in Japan, masses of 285 kg (628 lb) and carries five groups of science instruments with a total mass of 45 kg (99 lb). This is a spin-stabilised platform, meaning that prior to detaching from MPO, it will be set spinning at 15 rpm so it can remain stable as it operates in a polar orbit around Mercury.

The overall goal of the mission is to carry out the most comprehensive study of Mercury to date, examining its magnetic field, magnetosphere, interior structure and surface, with a primary mission period of one year. In addition, during the flight, BepiColombo will make the most precise measurements of the orbits of the Earth and Mercury around the Sun made to date as a part of further investigations of Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

As noted above, it will take BepiColombo seven years to reach Mercury. This is because of a couple of reasons. The first is, contrary to what logic might suggest, getting closer to the Sun is actually harder than moving away from it when starting from Earth. The is because a vehicle departing Earth does so with a “sideways” motion relative to the Sun of around 67,000 mph (107,000 km/h), the speed the Earth is orbit the Sun, and this has to be overcome. At the same time, speed has to be managed so that the vehicle can also approach Mercury at a slow enough velocity to allow it to brake its way into orbit.

To achieve both of these goals, the MTM on BepiColombo is equipped with the most powerful ion propulsion system yet flown in space. This is capable for maintaining a low rate of thrust over exceptionally long periods – much long that could be achieved by rocket motors and for far less fuel, given the ion system is electrically powered, using two 14 metre (46 ft) long solar panels to generate the power. The motor will be used to help slow BepiColombo in its flight, acting as a long-slow-burning brake. However, the ion motors aren’t sufficient to get the mission to Mercury; more is required.

Computer composite rendering of the stacked BepiColombo spacecraft making a flyby of Mercury with the ion propulsion system of the MTM firing. Credits: Spacecraft: ESA/ATG medialab; Mercury: NASA/JPL

This “more” take the form of using no fewer than nine planetary fly-bys. The first of these will happen in April 2020, when BepiColumbo, now in an extended orbit around the Sun, will encounter Earth once more. This will bend the vehicle’s flight path inwards towards the Sun which will swing it past Venus in October of that year, the first of two Venus fly-bys. The second of these will occur in August 2021, and will bend BepiColombo’s orbit further in towards Mercury, which it will reach at the start of October 2021.

But things don’t end there. While planetary fly-bys serve to bend a space vehicle’s trajectory, allowing it to “hop” from planet to planet, it also increases the vehicle’s velocity. Even with the long periods of braking possible using the ion motors, BepiColombo will be travelling too fast to achieve orbit around Mercury at that first encounter. Instead, the spacecraft will be placed in a solar orbit that periodically intercepts Mercury in is orbit, and over a series of five such encounters between June 2022 and January 2025, BepiColombo will use Mercury’s gravity in conjunction with its ion engines to slow itself down to around the threshold at which it can make orbit.

BepiColombo’s flight to Mercury, via Phoenix7777

This will occur in December 2025, as the vehicle makes its seventh approach to Mercury. However, with a mass of around 4 tonnes combined, the vehicle will still have too much inertia for the ion motors to bring it into orbit. Instead, the MTM will be jettisoned, and the smaller, lighter MMO will use its own high-thrust conventional motor systems to brake itself into an initial orbit around Mercury. At the same time, Mio will be separated, so it can enter a more distant orbit around the planet.

Continue reading “Space Sunday: BepiColombo and giant planets” →

Space Sunday: of Soyuz aborts and telescopes

Posted on by Inara Pey
Cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin (l) and astronaut Nick Hague (r) prior to their flight aboard Soyuz MS-10 – a flight that was a lot shorter and a little more exciting than either man anticipated. Credit: Roscosmos

On Thursday, October 11th, 2018, the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft carrying two crew – American astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin to the International Space Station (ISS) suffered a core second stage failure, triggering an emergency launch abort. Both Hague and Ovchinin survived the ordeal – although the way some of the media were reporting things, one might have thought they were hoping otherwise.

Soyuz utilises a R7 booster family of launch vehicle. This comprises a single-engined core element (confusingly called the 2nd stage, surrounded by 4 liquid-fuelled strap-on boosters referred to as the first stage. Each of these also has a single motor with, like the core stage, four combustion chambers. At launch, all five elements are fired, with the four strap-on boosters running for around 2 minutes. Then, with their fuel expended, they are jettisoned.

The view from the ground as Soyuz MS-10 starts its flight, October 11th, 2018. Credit: NASA TV

It is at this point – 2 minutes into the vehicle’s ascent from the Baikonaur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, that things went awry,  and gave observers watching from the ground the first indication of trouble – telemetry being relaid to mission control in Star City, near Moscow give little indication of a problem, causing commentators there to keep to their prepared scripts even as the drama unfolded.

Due to the way they fall clear of the core stage, the four strap-on boosters perform a controlled tumble with their exhaust plumes still visible. Seen from the ground, this forms distinctive and almost symmetrical pattern around the core stage called the “Korolev Cross” in honour of the father of modern Soviet / Russian space flight, Sergei Korolev, who also designed the original R7 rockets.

On this occasion, however, following separation, a decidedly asymmetrical Korolev Cross briefly formed, before the sky around the rocket became spotted with debris as if something had broken up.  At the same time, video of the cabin in the Soyuz vehicle’s decent module, where the crew sit during both ascent to orbit and their return to earth, showed Ovchinin  and Hague suddenly experiencing a brief period of weightlessness, almost as if thrust from the vehicle’s second stage had ceased, before they were pushed back into their seats and the plush toy suspended in front of the camera (used as a very rough-and ready G-force indicator) suggested a rapid acceleration.

This sudden acceleration was the result of the launch escape system kicking-in, separating the payload shroud containing the upper two modules of the Soyuz from the failing rocket. The manoeuvre recorded a 6.7 G acceleration right when the crew would have been expecting a 1.5G climb up to orbit as a result of jettisoning the spent strap-on boosters.

Once clear of the rocket, the fairing deployed a set of aerodynamic breaking flaps, slowing it to allow the Soyuz descent module to detach. The normal parachute and retro rockets where then used to bring the capsule back to Earth and execute a safe landing.

The distinctive “Korolev Cross” of booster separation see with R7 launches (l), and how it looked with Soyuz MS-10 (r). The first visual indications from the ground that something had gone wrong. Credits: NASA TV

Precisely what caused the failure has yet to be determined. As well as recovering the two crew safely and returning them to Baikonour unharmed, teams have also been busy recovering parts of the failure rocket, and Roscosmos believe they’ll be in a position to use the parts so far recovered together with telemetry from the vehicle’s ascent to provide a preliminary report on the failure within a week.

In the meantime, space experts have been examining video footage of the launch, and it would appear some form of malfunction during the separation of one of the four strap-on boosters may have caused it to actually collide with the core rocket. In his analysis of the flight, Scott Manley points to both the asymmetrical pattern of debris from the booster separation and what appears to be a radical slewing in the exhaust plume of the core stage as evidence there was some form of collision.

A remarkable shot of Soyuz MS-10 captured by ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst from the ISS. Credit: A. Gerst / ESA / NASA

Some confusion also exists over what actually happened during the abort sequence. Like Apollo crewed rockets, Soyuz has a tower-like escape system at its top. In an emergency, rockets mounted in the tower fire, pulling the crew module clear with a brief acceleration of about 14 G. As the reported acceleration with MS-10 was less than this, there was speculation the escape system hadn’t been used.

However, the Russian escape system, called the Sistema Avariynogo Spaseniya (SAS), unlike American systems, has two sets of motors: those in the tower, and a set of lower-thrust motors mounted directly on the payload fairing, and capable of around 7 G acceleration – the reported speed of the Soyuz on separation. It’s theorised it was these motors that pulled the Soyuz clear, the vehicle not having reached a velocity warranting the use of the tower rockets in order to pull the Soyuz clear.

Left: the Soyuz escape system (SAS) and how it works. The system uses two sets of motors which can be used together or independently of one another to pull the upper section of the payload fairing and the Soyuz clear of a malfunctioning rocket. The Soyuz descent module can then jettison, using its parachute and landing motors to return to Earth. Right: The SAS motor tower (boxed) with four rockets, and the second set of 4 RDG rockets mounted on the payload fairing (ringed). Credits: assorted.

Continue reading “Space Sunday: of Soyuz aborts and telescopes” →

OSCC 2018: call for proposals and volunteers

Posted on by Inara Pey
Via OSCC

The 2018 OpenSimulator Community Conference (OSCC) will take place on Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th December 2018.

An annual conference that focuses on the developer and user community creating the OpenSimulator software.  Organised as a joint production by Core Developers of OpenSimulator and AvaCon, Inc., with major sponsors including  the University of California, Irvine, Institute for Virtual Environments and Computer Games and the Rockcliffe University Consortium.

Call for Proposals

The Conference for 2018 will feature a series of dynamic short presentations and panels that spotlight the best of the OpenSimulator platform and community, and a Call for Proposals has been issued to individuals or groups who are shaping the Metaverse.

The speaker sessions offer 20-minute presentations to engage the mind while the community-sponsored tours, and on the Expo regions, content give-aways and Hypergrid explorations take attendees to faraway places. We are particularly interested in speakers who dramatically tell the story of their work and employ great 3D examples as props and graphics. In particular, the organisers encourage presentations that span current innovations and activities, performance artistry, educational simulations, innovative business cases or  have a publication or track record of real world use.

Those wishing o submit a proposal, please complete the proposal application form. If you have questions or need more information, please contact the conference organisers.

Key Dates & Deadlines

  • October 22nd, 2018 – Proposals are due by 11:59 PM PST (Pacific Standard Time).
  • October 29th, 2018 – Proposal  acceptance emails and with conference information.
  • November 3rd, 2018 – Accepted speakers must register for the conference to create an entry in the conference schedule and the program.
  • November 10th, 2018 – Speaker Orientation & Training sessions and Presenter Booth Setup to prepare speakers for the conference.
  • November 17th, 2018 – Deadline for stage props and audio-visuals (beyond textures) for conference program.
  • December 8-9th, 2018 – OSCC18 Conference dates.
Image courtesy of the OpenSimulator Community Conference

Volunteers

The conference needs volunteers to help in a range of activities:

  • Greeters / audience assistances
  • Moderators
  • Builders
  • Scripters
  • Social Media / Communications
  • Streaming and Technical Support

Those interested in volunteering can do so via the Volunteer Sign-up form,  Depending upon interests, volunteers can select more than one role if they wish.

Image courtesy of the OpenSimulator Community Conference

About the Conference

The OpenSimulator Community Conference is an annual conference that focuses on the developer and user community creating the OpenSimulator software. The conference is a joint production by Core Developers of OpenSimulator and AvaCon, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the growth, enhancement, and development of the metaverse, virtual worlds, augmented reality, and 3D immersive and virtual spaces.  The conference features a day of presentations, panels, keynote sessions, and social events across diverse sectors of the OpenSimulator user base.

Space Sunday: exomoons, dwarf planets and spaceflight plans

Posted on by Inara Pey
Artist’s impression of the exoplanet Kepler-1625b, transiting the star, with the candidate exomoon in tow. Credit: Dan Durda

A pair of Columbia University astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and Kepler Space Telescope have assembled compelling evidence for the existence of a Neptune-size moon orbiting a gas-giant planet 8,000 light-years away. If their findings are correct, it will be the first moon found orbiting a planet beyond our solar system.

The planet, Kepler 1625b, is between 5.9 and 11.67 times the size of Jupiter. It orbits a G-class main sequence star with around 8% more mass than our own in the constellation of Cygnus, every 287.4 days. The planet has been known about for some time, but whilst re-examining the data gathered by the Kepler space observatory that led to its discovery, Alex Teachey and David Kipping from the University of Columbia noticed anomalies in the way the planet dimmed the star’s light as it transited between the star and Kepler – anomalies that in ordinary circumstances should not have been there, but which were enough to get the astronomers 40 hours observing time using the Hubble Space Telescope.

Able to study the star with four times greater precision than Kepler, HST was used to observe Kepler 1625 both before and during one of the planet’s 19.5 hour transits across the star. In doing so, it recorded not only the anticipated dip in the star’s brightness, but also a second dimming along the same orbital path, starting some 3.5 hours after the first had started. The Hubble data also revealed that Kepler 1625b started its transit across the star 1.25 hours earlier than it should have.

When put together, the most likely explanation for both the “premature” transit and the extra dimming of light from Kepler 1625 is that a vary large, somewhat distance moon is orbiting the Jupiter-like Kepler 1625b. The presence of such a body in orbit would set a common barycentre (centre of gravity) between the planet and the moon that would cause the planet to “wobble” from its predicted location in its orbit, leading to variations in the start times for transits. Similarly, the presence of a large moon orbiting it would cause the additional dimming in the star’s brightness during a transit.

Diagram of the sequence of HST photometric observations. The purple object represents the planet Kepler 1625b, and the smaller green object is that exomoon, showing how the latter transits the star about 3.5 hours after the planet. Credit: NASA / ESA / D. Kipping (Columbia University), and A. Field (STScI)

Before the exomoon’s existence can be confirmed, further observations by Hubble are required. However, the preliminary data gathered suggests it could be around 1.5 percent the mass of its parent star – which is a very close mass-ratio between the Earth and its moon. However, given both the massive planet and its moon appear to both be gaseous in nature, should the moon’s existence be confirmed, it raises intriguing questions as to how it was formed.

In the case of solid satellites like the Moon, their creation is likely due to a collision between Earth and another planetary body that left debris that coalesced into the Moon. Such a path of formation for a gaseous body, however, is exceptionally unlikely: anything impacting with Kepler 1625b, for example, would likely be absorbed into it, rather than throwing off matter to form a separate orbiting body.

One of the most intriguing theories for the moon’s possible existence is that it may have started life as a separate planet orbiting Kepler 1625, but over time it came under the gravitational influence of the massive Kepler 1625b, and over time was drawn into orbit around it. If this should prove to be the case, it could have interesting implications for future exoplanets and the moons that may be found orbiting them.

NASA Delays Commercial Crew Launches and Tensions with Russia Increase

NASA has confirmed that the first uncrewed test flights of the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing CST 100 Starliner commercial crew transports intended to fly astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) have been delayed.

SpaceX Crew Dragon (l) and the Boeing CST-100 Starliner: initial flights delayed. Credit: SpaceX / Boeing

Under the original schedule, the uncrewed flight test for Crew Dragon had been scheduled for November 2018 and would have been followed by a 2-week crewed flight with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley in April 2019.  Under the new schedule, these flights will now  occur in January and June 2019 respectively.

Similarly, the first uncrewed flight for the CST-100 Starliner is now planned for March 2019 with the crewed test previously scheduled for mid-2019 now set for August 2019.

If SpaceX and Boeing maintain the new schedule, NASA believe the first operational commercial crew mission could take place in August 2019 – which would suggest a Crew Dragon would be the vehicle used, given the CST-100 would just have completed its crewed test flight, requiring some post-mission analysis. The second operational will then follow in December 2019. Both of these dates straddle the end to the US government’s extended contract to use seats on Russia’s Soyuz vehicle to send US astronauts to and from the ISS.

While unrelated, the news of the delays came as US / Russia tensions concerning the hole found in a Soyuz capsule became strained once more.

As I’ve previously noted (see here and here), at the end of August a slow leak was detected in a Soyuz MS-08 docked at the ISS. Initially, it was thought the hole causing the leak was the result of debris puncturing the Soyuz hull. However, it emerged the hole appears to have been drilled. Core thinking around it was that a mistake had been made during the vehicle’s fabrication or in preparing it for flight at the Baikonur cosmodrome, and then hastily covered up. In either case, it is believed a substance unfit for purpose was used in the repair, which gradually degraded in space prior to failing completely, causing the pressure loss.

Continue reading “Space Sunday: exomoons, dwarf planets and spaceflight plans” →

Space Sunday: roadmaps, space stations, rovers and storms

Posted on by Inara Pey
A dramatic illustration from the latest NASA report on reaching the Moon and Mars with human space flights. Credit: NASA

On September 28th, 2018, NASA issued its latest report on how it hopes to return humans to the Moon and then travel onwards to Mars. Entitled the National Space Exploration Campaign Report, it’s a bit of a curate’s egg of things; just 21 pages in length, it offers a lot of aspiration, not always with underlying detail; avoids hard decisions while offering open-ended time lines; presents time lines as a road map,  but avoids mention of precisely how to reach the destination(s) or the cost of the journey(s).

In all, the report lays out three broad aims:  expanding low Earth orbit activities to include commercial operators, operating their own orbital facilities – and possibly the International Space Station; moving outwards to lunar orbit and from there to the surface of the Moon; then moving onwards to Mars. All are painted with very broad brush strokes and leave much unsaid.

LOP-G is now seen as a “foundational gateway” system for reaching both the Moon and Mars – click for full size, if required. Credit: NASA

The lunar aspects of the report, for example, cover the incremental development of the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (LOP-G) and how it could theoretically help develop capabilities that can be used in vehicles intended to carry humans to Mars. It also outlines how NASA can build towards human operations on the Moon through an incremental development of automated capabilities that both increase our understanding of the Moon, the resources it offers, etc., to a point where the first crew-carrying lander vehicle could be ready “in the late 2020s”. But when it comes to detailed ideas for the architecture of a human presence on the Moon, things are left vague.

In terms of Earth orbit operations, the report points to NASA transitioning away from operating the International Space Station to leasing facilities from the private sector; but precisely how these commercial orbital platforms are to be built is unclear, other than referencing the US $150 million of NASA’s that will be used to encourage commercial development of such platforms from 2019. $150 million is a very small amount when you consider the $100 billion construction cost of the ISS; without some very clear-cut, real-time ROI being evidenced for the private sector, it’s hard to see the ISS being supported by multiple commercial platforms of equatable capabilities in just six years.

NASA’s “swoosh” chart outlining the agency’s plans for lunar exploration, and a common element is recent presentations and a part of the new report. Credit: NASA

To be fair, some of the lack of detail within the report is understandable on a number of levels. In 1989, for example, NASA produced the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI), a report outlining how it would take humans to Earth orbit, thence to the Moon and thence to Mars. The report offered a massive vision: 30 years of development and exploration lading up to humans landing on Mars – as a suitable price tag to go with it: US $430 billion. That’s the kind of figure that would have had Congress dropping the report into the bottom of a very deep draw (possibly in a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard, somewhere in the basement of Capitol Hill, if I might re-purpose a quote).

There’s also the fact that it’s hard to get any politico to sign up to something that has end results they’re unlikely to be in office long enough to see. This was certainly the case with SEI, and it was something John F. Kennedy understood when he set NASA the goal of “landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth” within a decade. Thus, it is perhaps understandable why this report doesn’t stray that far beyond 2024, preferring to leave matters after that date pretty much as “TBD”.

However, in the course of the last few years, NASA has been repeatedly criticised by the US Congress for refusing to present  specifics when outlining its intentions. In this respect, the pendulum seems to have swung too far: from a gung-ho attitude of “gives us the money and we’ll deliver – although it could take longer than you’ll be around” evidenced with SEI, to an almost timid, “We’d like to do this, but we’ll sort out how later, so you don’t have to worry about the price”, which is perhaps as equally as dangerous when trying to set out where you’d like to go and how you’d like to get there.

The View from an Asteroid

In my previous Space Sunday update, I covered the arrival of two small Japanese landers on the surface of asteroid 162173 Ryugu. Since then, both of these little vehicles have been returning images and data as they sit on the asteroid’s surface and / or hop around it.

While the rovers – MINERVA-II1 A and B – have both revealed the surface of Ryugu to be rocky, the images are still stunning, especially those stitched together to form a time-lapse video showing the Sun passing across the sky above rover 1 B as the asteroid tumbles along its orbit.

The rovers are two of four vehicles that will be delivered to the surface of Ryugu by Japan’s Hayabusha 2 satellite, currently orbiting the asteroid. Together the rovers and orbiter will probe and study Ryugu in detail, with the orbiter also gathering samples from both the surface and sub-surface, which it will return to Earth for analysis at the end of 2020.

Continue reading “Space Sunday: roadmaps, space stations, rovers and storms” →

Oculus Quest: the new Oculus standalone headset system

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Oculus Quest (centre) with the Go and Rift flanking it. Credit: Facebook.

Update, Thursday September 27th, 2018: hands-on reviews, such as this one from Techcrunch, report the Quest is powered by a Snapdragon 835 chipset.

On Wednesday, September 26th, Facebook announced the Oculus Quest, billed as their “first all-in-one VR gaming system”. The new headset is due to start shipping in Spring 2019 with a price point of US $399 and 64 GB of on-board storage.

The Quest isn’t actually the first Oculus standalone headset unit – that honour went to the Oculus Go, launched in May 2018. It provides an experience similar to the Gear VR system offered by Samsung (and using Oculus optical hardware), and sells for US $199 with 32 GB, or US $249 with US $64 GB of storage. The unit was seen as easy to use, albeit with limitations.

Oculus Quest is intended to sit between the Rift and Go, and “first” used with it is in relation to the “VR gaming system”, as Facebook see this new headset being specifically about gaming. It offers capabilities far above those of Go, and even exceeding the Rift. These capabilities include:

  • 1600 x 1440 per eye resolution.
  • Two Oculus Touch style controllers.
  • 6DoF (6 degrees of freedom).
  • Built-in 360 degree audio.
  • Adjustable spacing for its lenses.
  • Four ultra wide-angle sensors for motion tracking / positioning, with “arena sized” tracking capabilities.
The Oculus Quest on display at Connect 5. Everything – battery, CPU, GPU, etc., is contained within the headset. No separate battery case processing unit. Credit: Windows Central

As a standalone unit, the headset uses a dedicated operating system, based on Android (as does the Go), so it will not natively run existing Rift VR titles, although it is anticipated that Rift-focused games will be ported to Quest alongside Quest’s own list of titles – there will be a portfolio of at least 50 titles available when the Quest starts shipping. Interestingly Facebook have indicated that they plan to have a Single button” process to allow Quest centric games to be converted for use on the Rift “with no code changes”.

The key differentiator between Quest and the Rift – other than the standalone nature of Quest – is, as mentioned above, that Quest is being touted as a games-centric headset, while the Rift is seen as more “video” oriented. However, and allowing for development of titles and applications, it’s hard to see such an artificial division between the two remaining in place over time.

In keeping with this, the 50-title line-up for when Oculus Quest starts shipping is games centric, and will include a three-part cinematic Star Wars “6DOF” experience, centred on Darth Vader. Called Vader Immortal, players using it will, to quote, “Be able to step inside the world of Star Wars in the comfort of your living room and, for the first time, truly feel free.” Also as a part of the games element, Facebook note that Quest headsets can be used in multi-player scenarios right out of the box.

An image said to be from Vader Immortal, the new Lucasfilm 3-part VR experience set to launch when the Oculus Quest starts shipping in 2019. Credit: Starwars.com

The sensor system on Quest, now officially called Oculus Insight, sounds particularly impressive. The four ultra-wide-angle sensors coupled with “advanced computer vision algorithms”, allow for full position tracking in real-time. the sensors look for edges, corners, walls and furniture to build up a 3D map of the wearer’s surroundings, while input from the headset’s gyroscope and accelerometer allows an estimate of the wearer’s head position to be calculated every millisecond. Quest also includes a capability called “multi-room guardian”, allowing multiple environments where the headset may be used to be mapped and saved, removing the need for constant recalibration when using Quest in different locations.

The new Quest controllers (seen below) are very similar in nature to the Touch controllers, offering joysticks, menu buttons, a pair of trigger buttons for each hand, and an AB/XY array. The major difference is a new halo that goes around the hand. It is thought this may link with another element of the Oculus Quest ecosystem: an RGB sensor, which may be used to translate controller location in virtual space, and which can double as a “camera” a Quest wearer can toggle in order to see a (greyscale?) view of their real-life surroundings.

The Oculus Quest controllers, similar in nature to the Oculus Touch. Credit: Facebook

No detailed specifications have been given in terms of CPU / GPU for Quest – although it is believed a  high-end Qualcomm Snapdragon is providing the necessary processing. In introducing the headset, Facebook refer to it as rounding out their “first generation” of VR systems:

With the introduction of Oculus Quest, we’ve completed our first generation of best-in-class VR headsets. Oculus Go remains the easiest and most affordable way to get into VR, while Oculus Rift leverages the power of your PC to push the limits of what’s possible. Thanks to Oculus Quest, we’re now able to combine the best of both worlds and welcome even more people into the VR community.

Oculus VR, Introducing the Oculus Quest, September 26th, 2018

With HTC recently having launched a US $300 wireless adaptor for the HTC Vive and Vive Pro – both of which require a high-end gaming rig, Oculus VR may just, with this announcement of the Quest priced at the same level as the Rift, stolen a march on their competition. That said, it’s likely still not enough to get me to invest in a VR headset just yet. I’ll see what the next generation of hardware brings. But for those who are interested in the Oculus Quest, hands-on reviews should be appearing on the web, “real soon now”, to coin a phrase.