Cesium’s New 3D Map of the Moon Will Help Plan Future NASA Missions
American 3D geospatial company Cesium has released Cesium Moon Terrain, a comprehensive, exceptionally accurate, and publicly accessible 3D dataset of the Moon.
Developed to support NASA’s ongoing Artemis missions and other international space operations, the public dataset relies on detailed images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and other sources. It is supplied as 3D Tiles, an open 3D terrain standard created by Cesium.
“We launched Cesium Moon Terrain as an accurate and interoperable 3D Tiles canvas to support the international interest in lunar exploration and building structures on the moon’s surface,” says Cesium CEO Patrick Cozzi. “Cesium Moon Terrain will enable engineers, system integrators, and digital content creators to build simulations, mission plans, and real-time operations experiences.”
Cesium recently showed off its Moon Terrain project at the Digital Twin for Lunar Development Workshop at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Among the attendees was Ansys, who is using the 3D lunar data to help model and understand the impacts of challenging terrain on RF communications systems.
Another collaborator, Buendea, is working with the NASA Advanced Operations Concept Lab to develop XR Operations Support Systems (XOSS) to support real-time simulations on the Moon and Mars.
“We’re excited about the potential of Cesium Moon Terrain to accelerate our work, including our efforts with NASA, to accurately plan and simulate explorations of the lunar surface,” says Buendea’s founder, Julian Reyes.
Cesium Moon Terrain will be used as a base 3D model layer to place models of habitats, vehicles, or rovers onto the Moon’s surface. Users can also embed their own high-resolution terrain data within Cesium Moon Terrain.
Per Cesium, Moon Terrain is the first readily available single comprehensive 3D dataset of the Moon. Better yet, anyone can now access the data set by signing up for a Cesium Ion account. PetaPixel has confirmed that the account creation process is free, and the Cesium Moon Terrain data is available now.
More broadly, it is interesting to see how the detailed photographs captured by NASA’s LRO, combined with terrain data, can help scientists develop future missions to the Moon. How far space exploration has come since humankind first stepped foot on the Moon in 1969.
Image credits: Cesium
