Simulation of virtual environment for crewed Lunar missions

A. V. Maltsev, P. Yu. Timokhin, E. V. Strashnov

Scientific Research Institute for System Analysis of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation

Abstract: We studied the virtual simulation of a crewed spacecraft control for research missions to the Moon's surface. There is an obvious need to survey the Moon in the short and medium term. The solutions are based on advanced VR: the environment is completely replaced by a virtual one. We proposed an architecture of a virtual environment system consisting of hardware, software, and digital models. The motion and landing of a virtual spacecraft are simulated by estimating the jet engine thrust. The control inputs are optimized for fast response (spacecraft orientation) and min fuel consumption (for deceleration). The control logic is supported with feedback from virtual sensors to stabilize, orient, decelerate, and perform a soft landing on the Moon. The moon's surface is simulated by a GPU using detailed Moon textures and adaptive triangulation of the terrain grid. The proposed solution is suitable to build video simulators for space crew training.

Keywords: crewed spacecraft, Moon, soft landing, virtual environment.

DOI: 10.51790/2712-9942-2022-3-4-06