Virtual reality technology has become quite the norm in today's fast paced society. So it isn't the least bit surprising that the first ever virtual reality camera satellite will be propped in space. The International Space Station will soon have its own virtual reality satellite by the year 2017.
Thanks to a signed a launch agreement, SpaceVR will send a virtual reality satellite to the ISS with the help of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Along with a commercial laboratory by NanoRacks, SpaceVR will prepare the twin-camera cube satellite, Overview 1, during the SpaceX CRS-12 Mission. It'll be released into the Earth's orbit with NanoRacks' CubeSat Deployer by 2017.
"My dream, when I first had this idea at a hackathon 1.5 years ago, was to launch a VR satellite with NanoRacks. It seemed crazy and borderline unachievable. Now we are signed, paid, and moving towards something exponentially more borderline unachievable," said Ryan Holmes, founder and CEO of SpaceVR, in a statement.
Prior to the contract with NASA, SpaceVR started as a Kickstarter campaign in 2015. The page failed to reach the $500,000 goal for sending a 12-camera rig to the International Space Station. The said camera would be able to capture 3D and 360-degree footage. Yet, thanks to an investment of $1.25 million, the new project is good to go.
SpaceVR will have full control over the world's first ever virtual reality camera satellite. The company will be taking footage from the cameras and will be stitching it into a 360-degree sphere. The live-stream of the photos is said to be the company's ultimate goal.
"We have a radio, we have an attitude control system, we have reaction wheels and gyroscopes that maintain stability, and we have flight controller software that tells the satellite what to do and when," stated Holmes in a report by The Verge.
People dreaming of going to outer space might just get the shot as subscriptions for the footage taken from the virtual reality camera satellite will be sold.