Believe It Or Not, The Iconic Star-Trek Like Holoportation Has Become A Reality!

By: | April 20th, 2022

Image courtesy: European Space Agency

NASA ‘holoported’ doctors to ISS for the first time

NASA has successfully “holoported” a hologram medical team aboard the International Space Station. In a press release, NASA revealed that NASA flight surgeon Dr. Josef Schmid, one of the doctors on the team who were projected into the ISS, had a one-on-one conversation with astronaut Thomas Pesquet in October last year.

NASA says that the Holoportation has been in use since 2016, using technology from Microsoft and a Houston-based start-up called AEXA Aerospace. However, the medical team’s virtual visit to the ISS is the first instance of projecting a figure in outer space. 

What is ‘Holoportation’?

Holoportation is a combination of two words- Hologram and teleportation. The technology allows high-quality 3D models of people to be reconstructed, compressed, and transmitted in real-time. It also allows people to see, hear and interact with holoported participants in 3D.

How did NASA achieve this?

NASA used Microsoft’s HoloLens, a mixed reality display device, a HoloLens Kinect camera, and AEXA custom software, to see, hear and interact with remote participants in 3D as if they all were sitting in the same room.

Nidhi Goyal

Nidhi is a gold medalist Post Graduate in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.

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