Official launch of Tranquility Base and VIRUP prototype in Tokyo

EPFL Virtual Space Tour Tokyo, organised by the Embassy of Switzerland in Japan Science & Technology Office Tokyo (STO) and EPFL Space Center (eSpace), continues. After the Science Museum in Tokyo and a brief visit to the Embassy of Switzerland in Japan for a behind closed doors official presentation, Tranquility Base and VIRUP will meet the public at Base Q on September 17^th and 18^th.

Live experiences

The final version of virtual escape game Tranquility Base (TB), produced by the student association Space@yourService, can be played in person by two people at a time.

As a reminder, Tranquility Base is a thrilling co-op augmented reality escape game set in a lunar base and its mission control center on Earth where cooperation, action and time will be the key to saving the mission!

Visitors can also immerse themselves in an advanced prototype demo of VIRUP, the virtual map of the Universe developed by the Laboratory of Astrophysics (LASTRO) of EPFL, using state-of-the-art virtual reality (VR) headsets.

VIRUP is a new multi-platform VR environment which provides users with the most modern dynamical view of our Universe. Fully immersed, one can travel through space and time, from the solar system through the outer confines of the Universe, visiting the nearby stars, exoplanets, our galaxy the Milky Way and the Local Group.

Hybrid conferences

Local visitors as well as a remote audience on YouTube can attend any of the four conferences about the hidden elements and projects in TB, careers opportunities in the space field and the major questions around space debris and space sustainability, gathering Swiss and Japanese experts and students.

Friday Sept. 17^th

6:00 PM JST (11:00 AM CEST) – Tranquility Base : the Project and SpaceBok, a Four-Legged Robot for Planetary Exploration

• Alexandre de Montleau (Space@yourService EPFL, Tranquility Base project)
• Hendrik Kolvenbach (ETH Zurich, SpaceBok project)

7:00 PM JST (12:00 AM CEST) – The Space Debris problem: monitoring and solving it by

• Prof. Thomas Schildknecht, Head of Optical Astronomy and Space Sustainability Group, Vice Director Astronomical Institute, University of Bern
• Prof. Sinichi Kimura, Faculty of Science and Technology, Dept. Electrical Engineering, Tokyo University of Science
• Dr. Luc Piguet, CEO ClearSpace SA
• Chris Blackerby, COO Astroscale
• Marie-Valentine Florin, Excecutive director EPFL International Risk Governance Center (IRGC)

Saturday Sept 18^th

3:00 PM JST (8:00 AM CEST) – Careers in Space by

• Prof. Jean-Paul Kneib, Director eSpace
• Ms. Chloé Carrière, Space@yourService EPFL
• Prof. Genya Ishigami, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University
• Mr. Naoyuki Oota, Dept. of Physics, Graduate School of Science Tokyo University of Science
• Mr. Taiki Kanda, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tokyo University of Science

5:00 PM JST (10:00 AM CEST) – Tranquility Base: The Project and the Modular Origami Robot MORI

• Alexandre de Montleau (Space@yourService, Tranquility Base project)
• Kevin Holdcroft (EPFL Reconfigurable Robotics Lab, Mori modular origami project)

For registration and more information about these free events, please visit https://epflvirtualspacetour.com/baseq