You will soon be able to experience spacewalking through virtual reality

Most of us wouldn’t be able to visit space, let alone experience a spacewalk. Even billionaires who can pay for a trip outside our planet’s atmosphere – or at least somewhere in this neighborhood – can only watch from their spaceships. Episodes 3 and 4 of the immersive series Space Explorers: The International Space Station ExperienceHowever, it will give you a way to see what it’s like to float in space. To achieve this, Felix & Paul Studios, one of the series’ creators, customized a virtual reality camera and connected it to the Canadarm2 robot to capture 360-degree 3D scenes from outside the space station.

The “Outer Space Camera” from Felix & Paul is a customized version of the commercially available Z-Cam V1 Pro. It has nine 4K sensors capable of capturing 3D 360-degree images in 8K resolution. The camera has also been modified to withstand extreme conditions including UV rays, extreme temperatures, and the effects of micro-meteorites. The team attached it to the Canadarm2 robotic arm, which moves around the station’s exoskeleton.

Jonathan Woods, the series’ executive producer, told Time Studios (one of the entities behind the project, along with NASA):

“Capture of the Earth in 3D, 360 degrees from space, has not been attempted outside the space station. It is exciting and surreal to see this happen, knowing that the dream of this ambitious project began more than five years ago in 2015.”

Episodes 3 and 4 will be available in fall and winter, respectively, in 360° mobile format on 5G-enabled devices by major carriers around the world, including LGU+ in South Korea, KDDI in Japan, and Orange in France and Deutsche. Telecom. In Germany. They will also be available as fully immersive virtual reality experiences in the Oculus Rift, Quest and Quest 2 headset store.