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Cesium for Omniverse v0.28.0

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CesiumJS 1.140

Aerospace

As the Orion spacecraft journeyed around the moon during the historic Artemis II mission, space enthusiasts around the world have tracked its progress with Orbit Codex’s online flight tracker. Built on CesiumJS, the flight tracker offers an interactive 3D view of the spacecraft’s location and trajectory.

The Artemis II tracker in Orbit Codex shows the flight of the Orion spacecraft in CesiumJS using trajectory data from the JPL Horizons API.

Artemis II Tracker from Orbit Codex

Orbit Codex has tracked the real-time location of the Orion spacecraft from the moment of its launch using trajectory data from the JPL Horizons API. The interactive 3D capabilities in CesiumJS allow users to move forward and backward in time along the ship’s planned path, making it easy to understand orbital motion and mission phases.

Viewing the Artemis II mission in interactive 3D makes it possible to visualize the relative motion of Earth and the Moon together with Orion’s flight path.

With roots in the aerospace industry, Cesium was designed from its inception for the high precision, time dynamic demands of space visualizations. A highly accurate WGS84 ellipsoid model of Earth and skybox with correct star and Sun positions, combined with its ability to efficiently render solar system–scale data directly in the browser makes CesiumJS the engine of choice for numerous space applications.

“Orbit Codex is a massive database of over 14,000 entities across the entire solar system, including rocket launches, over 8,000 satellites, and extensive space debris. I needed a WebGL engine capable of rendering a massive swarm of live objects smoothly. Cesium is the absolute gold standard for handling that level of scale.” 

The Artemis II tracker is only one small piece of Orbit Codex. As space exploration has expanded across governments and commercial sectors, information about launches, spacecraft, and missions has become wider spread. Frustrated by the fragmented nature of space data, founder Bret van Putten harnessed his professional expertise as an AI consultant and startup founder to build a comprehensive real-time space operations platform. 

Orbit Codex brings together data from dozens of sources into one unified, interactive platform that tracks launches, spacecraft, astronauts, and missions across the solar system. Data drawn from The Space Devs API is enhanced with hand curated data and a custom Google Vertex AI pipeline that uses search grounding to autonomously collect and structure historical data from verified sources.

In addition to tracking the Artemis II mission, Orbit Codex uses CesiumJS to visualize numerous other activities in space. Here moon rovers are shown on Cesium Moon data. Courtesy Orbit Codex.

Across Orbit Codex, CesiumJS acts as both a visualization engine to illustrate concepts and as a spatial index for accessing the site’s datasets. Users can dive into a detailed dossier on any entity and then instantly launch into a real-time 3D environment showing a base’s launch pads, a satellite’s current orbit, or a planet’s surface.

Visitors to Orbit Codex transition seamlessly between detailed information about numerous space topics and 3D visualizations in CesiumJS, like this view of the launch pads at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Orbit Codex’s extensive encyclopedia covers 18 categories, from moonbases to rovers. Visitors can explore detailed views of more than 350 launch and landing sites in CesiumJS, read about propulsion systems, view a catalog of the more than 350 organizations working in space, and read the profiles of more than 800 astronauts. They can also track over 20,000 Earth-orbiting satellites and debris in a CesiumJS visualization that pulls TLE data from the CelesTrak and Space-Track catalogs. Space debris entries are enhanced by ESA DISCOS data describing physical properties such as mass and dimensions. Visitors will also find models of all eight planets in the solar system; Orbit Codex uses Cesium Mars and Cesium Moon for off-Earth terrain and imagery. 

Orbit Codex is a comprehensive repository of information about space, bringing together historical and current data from public and private enterprises, as with this entry on the Athena lunar lander.

As this Artemis mission draws to a close, Orbit Codex’s journey is just beginning. The site is growing to become a “space time machine” that allows users to scrub back to 1969 to watch a replay of Apollo 11, to follow active missions from launch to touchdown, or to look ahead to future space infrastructure, such as moon bases, habitats, and space elevators.

Orbit Codex points both forward and backward in time, creating an archive of past missions to space and looking ahead to humanity’s future forays into the universe.

CesiumJS provides the aerospace-grade precision and planetary scale for these ambitious plans. Sign up for your own Cesium ion account to begin developing with Cesium.

Orbit Codex Tracks Flight of Artemis II in CesiumJS

Last year, Cesium released the first readily accessible, comprehensive 3D Tileset of the Moon. Today, we are excited to introduce Cesium Mars. Cesium Mars is a 3D Tileset to enable developers, researchers, and mission planners to create visualizations and simulations of the Red Planet. 

Cesium Mars comprises precise terrain captured by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), paired with colorized imagery. Cesium Mars is provided as 3D Tiles, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) community standard created by Cesium. 

Cesium Mars is a 3D Tileset to enable developers, researchers, and mission planners to create visualizations and simulations of the Red Planet. 

Cesium Mars

Enabling a digital ecosystem for planetary data 

A wealth of Mars data has already been captured by orbital and rover missions. The seven man-made satellites from five space agencies currently orbiting Mars and the two active rovers on Mars, NASA's Curiosity and Perseverance, send home more data every day through the Mars Relay Network. In addition, two space agencies are actively planning manned missions to Mars, and several additional agencies are planning for continued robotic exploration and orbital analysis. Cesium Mars lowers the barrier to entry for studying existing and new Mars data and for leveraging this ever-increasing data as part of the planning, execution, and analysis for Mars programs. A precise, easily accessed model of Mars supports the space community in its efforts toward an open, interoperable platform for a digital ecosystem supporting data captured beyond Earth.  

Mars viewed from space. Data for Cesium Mars from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) on the NASA Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) and the High-Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on the ESA Mars Express. 

The Gale Crater, visualized with Cesium Mars.  

Cesium Mars draped with a Mars MOLA elevation map from NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio. 

The launch of Cesium Mars comes at the right time when there's a need for planetary-scale digital twins and simulation for the next leap in human and robotic spaceflight. Buendea intends to leverage Cesium Mars within NASA’s XR Operations Support System (XOSS) to expand our digital twin environments beyond the Moon and into Mars. By combining Cesium’s geospatial platform with our high-fidelity interactive environments in Unreal Engine, we are creating a foundation for next-generation mission planning, astronaut training, and real-time operations in support of these efforts.  

Cesium Moon in XOSS in VR mode. Courtesy Buendea and NASA’s Advanced Operations Concepts Lab.

Since Cesium Moon’s release, the dataset has become a foundation for digital twins for mission planning, for training simulators, and for games. We anticipate similar uses for Cesium Mars. 

Space architects designing for the Moon and Mars are already employing workflows like those used for infrastructure on Earth. Cesium Mars enables those processes to converge, as users leverage functionality available for our open source runtime engines. Use Cesium Mars as a base layer to place models of habitats, vehicles, or rovers on the Martian surface. If you have your own high-resolution terrain data, clip and inset it so your projects can live within a single continuous 3D surface rather than multiple separate project areas. Share realistic, interactive 3D design visualizations with large, dispersed teams to facilitate review, highlight design alternatives, and present designs as they change over time. 

NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars, viewed with Cesium for Unreal in Unreal Engine.

Cesium Mars is provided as 3D Tiles using the IAU_2015:49901 CRS and is composed of the ⁠Mars Viking Colorized Global Mosaic 232m imagery and ⁠Mars MGS MOLA - MEX HRSC Blended DEM Global 200m for terrain, along with higher resolution data for the Jezero and Gale craters. Cesium’s visualization engines—CesiumJS, Cesium for Unreal, Cesium for Unity, and Cesium for Omniverse—are ready for you to start building with Cesium Mars using an accurate representation of the planetary ellipsoid for measurement and analysis. Cesium Mars is available via Cesium ion SaaS and Cesium ion Self-Hosted.

This CesiumJS Sandcastle provides an example of how to include Cesium Mars in a web app. A sample level in Cesium for Unreal provides an example for how to get started with development using Cesium Mars in Unreal Engine. 

As lunar and interplanetary missions proceed, the need for an open, interoperable, standards-based platform to support simulation, planning, and analysis has never been greater. Cesium Mars, along with Cesium Moon, is a step toward this vision, offering a precise and scalable foundation. 

To access Cesium Mars, sign up or sign in to Cesium ion, locate the asset in the Cesium ion Asset Depot, and add the tileset to your Asset Library. Then start building! Create Cesium Stories, incorporate the data into a CesiumJS web app, or build advanced visualizations with 3D creation engines such as Unreal Engine. 

Hobu, Inc., with its deep roots in open-source geospatial, has led the contributions of standards and tools such as PROJJSON, ASPRS LAS, Cloud Optimized Point Cloud (COPC), and the Point Data Abstraction Library (PDAL). To enable Hobu’s users to visualize and interact with massive point clouds and raster data, the company developed its browser-based Eptium viewer using CesiumJS.

Eptium builds upon CesiumJS to allow users to directly visualize and interact with COPC and Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF in the browser in 3D. Supporting these archive and transmission formats reduces data duplication and conveniently enables visualization of commonly available cloud content. Eptium makes city- or country-scale point cloud datasets accessible for visualization and analysis on the web, especially for disadvantaged users. Streamlined access to massive cloud-based datasets enables interactivity and understanding for a broad audience, including those in the field or students and professionals using devices without high-end graphics capabilities.

Eptium users can perform multipoint observer line-of-sight (LOS) analysis, generate viewsheds, and export GeoTIFF or SVG images directly from the browser without the need for specialized desktop software. They are able to collaborate by saving and sharing application view state as links. Customers use Eptium as a complete web application, build with it as a JavaScript developer bundle, or directly use it for free by visiting eptium.com and pointing at their own data.

Point cloud and viewshed of Montreal, Canada, in Eptium. Courtesy Hobu.

Distribution of point clouds as COPC eliminates the need for extensive preprocessing or local storage of large files. Eptium consumes COPC data on the fly, converting it into 3D Tiles in-browser for efficient streaming. Eptium optionally uses Cesium World Terrain via Cesium ion and Bing Maps Aerial imagery for additional geospatial context. For a comprehensive picture of areas of interest, this data is fused in CesiumJS, which was built for interactive web apps and scaling for massive datasets.

Eptium, COPC, and CesiumJS also power the moonlidar.com application that Hobu's Connor Manning created in support of NASA’s recomputation of the Moon’s elevation.

The Hobu team uses CesiumJS for moonlidar.com. Courtesy Hobu.

By combining Hobu's expertise with CesiumJS, the Hobu team empowers geospatial users by making complex 3D data accessible and actionable.

Learn to build your own CesiumJS app for 3D geospatial visualization and analysis on the web by following our tutorials.

Hobu's Eptium Visualizes Country-Scale Point Clouds with CesiumJS

With Ansys Systems Tool Kit (STK), engineers model land, sea, air, and space scenarios to understand the relationships among vehicles, payloads, facilities, and environments, including terrain. Ansys Geospatial Data Cloud (GDC) integrates Cesium ion Self-Hosted and global 3D content to provide STK with out-of-the-box access to accurate geospatial context within its time-dynamic simulations.

UAV over Boston in Ansys STK, with Geospatial Data Cloud using Cesium ion Self-Hosted. Courtesy Ansys.

STK was released in 1989 to serve US and allied aerospace and defense organizations, and GDC will be available to STK users in July 2025. Users may create virtual worlds including buildings, terrain, and other physical structures. Subsequently, an infinite number of simulation configurations may be exercised, resulting in a significant reduction in the dependence on physical prototypes.

Using Cesium, GDC will replace Ansys’ Geospatial Content Server, removing the need to develop and maintain their own real-world data, tilers, and hosting solution.

“Being able to use Cesium ion Self-Hosted has saved a significant number of man hours that can be redirected towards additional ways to take advantage of the unprecedented access to data. We estimate the time savings to be the equivalent of half a full-time employee,” the Ansys team noted.  

Cesium has helped Ansys enhance mission modeling since 2011.

Communication signal to noise over Boston in Ansys STK, with Geospatial Data Cloud using Cesium ion Self Hosted. Courtesy Ansys.

Cesium ion Self-Hosted provides hosting, tiling, and streaming for massive heterogeneous 3D geospatial datasets in users’ own clouds, data centers, or edge devices, enabling air-gapped solutions that meet strict security requirements and can be deployed to remote, disconnected environments.

GDC accesses Cesium World Terrain, Cesium World Bathymetry, Cesium OSM Buildings, Japan 3D Buildings and Terrain, and Cesium Moon Terrain via Cesium ion Self-Hosted. Accurate elevation data, depth data, and per-building metadata support planning and analysis in critical simulations. Cesium OSM Buildings are streamed as 3D Tiles in conjunction with Cesium World Terrain or Cesium World Bathymetry. Users can add their own datasets to be tiled into 3D Tiles for optimal streaming and visualization in STK.

UAV flying low over Boston in Ansys STK, with Geospatial Data Cloud using Cesium ion Self-Hosted.

Real-world data enables clearer pictures for analysis and decisions in complex multidomain scenarios.

Create and host 3D content in your own environment with Cesium ion Self-Hosted, and visit Ansys in the Cesium booth at GEOINT Symposium, #2231, to see Geospatial Data Cloud in action.

Hear from Ansys at the 2025 Cesium Developer Conference. Register to join us in Philadelphia in June.

Ansys Uses Cesium ion Self-Hosted for Geospatial Data Cloud

Our third installment highlights two more tracks at the 2025 Cesium Developer Conference: community-contributed aerospace and defense topics and sessions on Cesium, iTwin, OGC 3D Tiles, and other open technologies compiled by the teams at Cesium and Bentley Systems who work on them.

With Cesium’s roots in aerospace and commitment to interoperability and rapid innovation for tackling the hardest problems in 3D geospatial, we were excited to receive a group of full and lightning talk submissions focused on space, the Moon, flight systems, and mission-critical visualization and analysis.

To provide the community with a closer look into the advancements happening with Cesium and 3D Tiles, we decided to group a set of talks from the Platform team in Bentley Systems. The Platform team comprises development teams from Cesium, iTwin, and iTwin Capture, bringing together global geospatial, cloud-based-BIM (building information modeling), and reality capture.

Register for the Cesium Developer Conference

Calculating access to communications satellites in DigitalArsenal's OrbPro. Courtesy DigitalArsenal.

In today’s complex geopolitical environment, we’re seeing expanded interest in access to open geospatial technologies. Recent investments in the space industry have created satellite constellations with thousands of new spacecraft in just the last few years, and we’re hearing from developers who want to implement full global geospatial 3D experiences for training, planning, operations, and analysis.

These trends are reflected in the talk submissions we grouped in the Aerospace and Defense track, including:

A presentation by Maxar on 3D Tiles and One World Terrain

A photogrammetry sandbox built with Cesium for Unreal by the French Air Force

A flight status indication system from Takram

Military planning using agentic AI from our former colleague Brady Moore

Astronaut training on the Moon with Buendea

The Aerospace and Defense sessions are in a track the morning of June 24, and a series of seven lightning talks will be featured during the afternoon of the 24th on the main stage.

Maxar Precision3D Surface Model of Kabul International Airport. Courtesy Maxar Technologies.

We want the community to take center stage, and we want to feature enough sessions that developers can get a taste of what is happening now that Cesium is part of Bentley Systems.

The track focusing on Cesium, iTwin, and 3D Tiles will feature sessions on topics such as:

Bringing AI analytical tools for reality capture data into Cesium ion

Working with BIM data and the Design Tiler

How Gaussian splats and 3D Tiles are coming together

An exploration of new user interfaces combining geospatial and BIM data from the Bentley iLab team

The Cesium, iTwin, and 3D Tiles track will run through the morning of June 24 and into the morning of June 25.

You can find out more about what’s happening with Cesium and 3D Tiles in the pre-conference Cesium Deep Dive workshop and in mainstage presentations.

An iModel of a Philadelphia Metrostation on top of an iTwin Reality Mesh shown in CesiumJS.

There are six tracks with over 90 full sessions and lightning talks. We’ll be releasing more information about our fantastic mainstage presentations soon, including a closing session that will feature two reality capture stories featured in recent news!

The full agenda for the conference is live. Read more about this year’s tracks on the Cesium blog.

Our speakers are excited to meet up with industry colleagues, share learnings, and hear feedback. Register to attend and connect with the community in Philadelphia. We’ll see you there.

Aerospace, Defense, and Open Geospatial Technologies at the Cesium Developer Conference

NASA calls the Moon “a treasure trove of science.” Buendea uses Cesium Moon Terrain to support NASA’s Advanced Operations Concepts Lab (NAOCL), ensuring astronauts’ virtual training accurately reflects the lunar environments they’ll encounter when they leave home.

Cesium Moon Terrain in XOSS supporting NASA’s Advanced Operations Concepts Lab. Courtesy Buendea and NAOCL. 

Buendea uses Cesium Moon Terrain to support NASA's Advanced Operations Concepts Lab, specifically the Artemis missions.

Buendea XOSS

Scientific discovery around life off Earth—rock samples and water, for example—will require specific tools and training. XR Operations Support System (XOSS) is a collaboration between Buendea and NAOCL, based out of Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas, USA, to train astronauts in an accurate 3D lunar environment. 

XOSS users have the entire Moon in their simulation and can further immerse themselves in nine potential landing and habitation sites near the lunar South Pole, where Cesium Moon Terrain has its highest resolution data and Buendea has added additional high-res surface data. In VR mode, astronauts learn to board rovers, use tools to repair equipment, and work together. Admins running the sessions can trigger equipment failures or weather events to provide safe, repeatable learning experiences. 

Buendea and NAOCL provide XOSS for other facilities to work with as a tool to integrate into their workflows for training and simulation. NASA Assessments of Physiology in Cognition for Hybrid Reality Environments (APACHE) carries out human performance studies using XOSS to prepare astronauts for traverses on the Moon, measuring biometric data and other outputs from these moonwalks. Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) and Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) are both habitat environments at JSC that use XOSS to carry out analog simulated activities for Moon and Mars surface operations. Other groups use XOSS as a digital twin to carry out ad-hoc or science activities for extravehicular activity and intravehicular activity (EVA/IVA). 

Buendea was an early adopter of Cesium Moon Terrain and has used this geospatial base since its August 2024 release. 

XOSS in VR mode. Courtesy Buendea and NAOCL.

Buendea founder Julian Reyes shared that the requirement from NASA was a platform that would deliver the entirety of the Moon in Unreal Engine. Reyes and his team were prepared to build a model of the Moon themselves. Today, XOSS accesses Cesium Moon Terrain via Cesium ion and Cesium for Unreal. 

“By integrating Cesium Moon Terrain into our Unreal XOSS project, we were able to stand up our base integration of the lunar deployment instantly. This enabled us to start with developing and adding in our high-resolution surface terrain tiles directly into the deployment—and effectively cut our development time by more than 50%,” said Reyes, who will present XOSS at the 2025 Cesium Developer Conference. 

Cesium Moon Terrain is the first complete, accurate, and readily accessible 3D dataset of the Moon. Served as 3D Tiles via Cesium ion, it enables visualization, simulation, and analysis for advanced digital twin creation. 

XOSS currently accesses Cesium Moon Terrain via Cesium ion SaaS. In the near future, the platform will run internally at NASA via Cesium ion Self-Hosted to meet strict security requirements and enable a common workspace as more prototyping is done within XOSS. Buendea connects Cesium ion to its Unreal Engine projects via the open source Cesium for Unreal plugin, pulling in real-world content so astronauts learn among the terrain they expect to see. 

With an accurate lunar base already deployed, Buendea’s developers have been able to focus their time on incorporating additional surface data, including topographic images from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) and photogrammetry of sample rocks from the Apollo missions; adding accurate physics for dispersing regolith on moon when driving; integrating AI for robotics support and geological identification; and modifying lighting to accurately reflect the elongated shadows the lunar South Pole experiences. Fusing graphics capabilities and validated data from many sources in one platform means collaborating groups get a comprehensive view and can prototype and design within XOSS, all on top of Cesium Moon Terrain. 

XOSS users can immerse themselves in nine potential landing and habitation sites near the lunar South Pole. Courtesy Buendea and NAOCL.

Buendea plans to deploy XOSS internally at NASA, among commercial partners, and publicly, for open community development toward our shared future of human spaceflight. 

Both Buendea and Cesium are at the 40th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs this week, April 7-10, 2025. Meet us in booth #628. 

To add Cesium Moon Terrain to your Cesium for Unreal projects, follow this guide. 

Buendea Supports NASA Advanced Operations Concepts Lab with Cesium Moon Terrain 

COMSPOC, a commercial provider of space situational awareness (SSA) software, has released Spacebook to make space data free to access and visualize with the help of CesiumJS. Because space is crowded and sometimes contentious, awareness is critical; with Spacebook, the space community can compare data. 

Spacebook was released in September 2024 to make space data freely available to the space community.

Spacebook was released in September 2024 to make space data freely available to the space community. Courtesy COMSPOC.

COMSPOC Spacebook

Spacebook was released in September 2024. A central repository for space data and advancing the industry, “Wikipedia for space,” Spacebook is a concept the COMSPOC team had been discussing for a decade. COMSPOC itself has been operating every minute since 2014, and visualization tools in its SSASuite are built on Cesium.  

For free, Spacebook users are able to download current and historical position, weather, and error data; visualize the data in the Cesium-powered Explorer; and expand their knowledge with technical papers and videos available on comspoc.com. Those in government, industry, and education are encouraged to create saved views with the resources, investigating individual space objects or even performing flight safety analysis. Visualizations can be saved with a free account. 

With Cesium, Spacebook’s Explorer viewer enables users to display orbit tracks and covariance ellipsoids for objects, color-code groups of objects or modify dot sizes for easy visual identification, and adjust animation speed. COMSPOC shared an anecdote of an educator in Hawaii, USA, who got a permit to launch a cubesat. Using Spacebook, her university and high-school students are able to track this satellite in 3D in near real time and do their own SSA analysis. 

Spacebook users can download space weather data, compare orbits with the CesiumJS-powered Explorer, and dig into technical papers and videos. Courtesy COMSPOC. 

Position property average, for example, is calculated 10 times a second for 26,000 objects in Spacebook, so locations are constantly updated. Spacebook data uses two-line element (TLE) sets for object position data, SGP4-xp for improved orbital predictions, and synthetic covariance for comparing TLEs. COMSPOC acquires this information from Space-Track, CelesTrak, and the US government and intends to accept data from users in the future, too. These massive datasets of thousands of points are visualized in conjunction with a high-precision WGS84 globe in CesiumJS, accurately displaying object location at a given time in interactive 3D to enhance situational awareness and learning.  

“Having great data is one thing. A functional, friendly viewer that gives users the sizzle and shows the data is another. We were able to bring in other features because we didn’t have to worry about rebuilding the globe. Our expertise is in space analytics, not 3D modeling and engine design. Using Cesium lets us get to our expertise as soon as possible,” said Steve Shogren, development lead for Spacebook.

Interactively investigate individual space objects or perform analyses in a web browser with Spacebook. Courtesy COMSPOC.

Although COMSPOC recently released Spacebook, the team is already working on more data sources and new features.  

Check out how other aerospace companies are using Cesium, and try it today to make your space apps precise, detailed, and shareable. 

Spacebook Makes Space Data Accessible for All with CesiumJS 

“Reentry - A Space Flight Simulator” enables players to experience the evolution of human spaceflight, blending a game with a simulator, so users learn to operate spacecraft with realistic procedures and, soon, Cesium Moon Terrain.

Reentry is used for both fun and research. Creator Petri Wilhelmsen is replacing his homebuilt Moon renderer with Cesium Moon Terrain. Courtesy Petri Wilhelmsen.

Reentry is used for both fun and research. Creator Petri Wilhelmsen is replacing his homebuilt Moon renderer with Cesium Moon Terrain.

Reentry - A Space Flight Simulator

Reentry users make their way through NASA’s Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo while studying the history of human spaceflight and gaining practical skills. The ultimate goal is to land on the Moon.

A select group of players called “test pilots” will be the first to orbit and walk on Cesium Moon Terrain in Reentry, with this feature available to other users in early 2025.

Reentry is not limited to gamers. Creator Petri Wilhelmsen tailors instances of the simulator for aerospace industry agencies, and users are also testing VR implementation. 

These immersive 3D trainings bring aerospace professionals up to speed with realistic models and simulations for studies and research related to human space exploration. Wilhelmsen can build in failures or events so organizations can see how people behave in these situations, such as loss of power, fuel management, and isolation.

Lunar Module in orbit around the Cesium Moon. Courtesy Petri Wilhelmsen.

Wilhelmsen began working on Unity-based Reentry in 2015. It was released as “early access” on Steam in 2018 and remained a hobby for Wilhelmsen until summer 2024, when he joined Helsinki-based studio Lyra Creative and Reentry became his full-time project. Members of Lyra Creative are focused on immersive experiences, expanding users’ views and vital training opportunities.

View from the commander's window of the Apollo Command Module. Courtesy Petri Wilhelmsen.

Within a few hours of hearing about Cesium Moon Terrain, Wilhelmsen began incorporating it into Reentry via Cesium ion and Cesium for Unity. Cesium Moon Terrain is accurate, complete 3D Tiles of the lunar surface, enabling 3D visualizations, simulations, and analytics.

“Having a digital twin of the Moon, where craters and all the details of the Moon can be explored, is vital,” said Wilhelmsen. “Creating my own streamable Moon renderer is beyond my own capabilities, and, by using Cesium, I can instead focus on other aspects of the game.” 

Wilhelmsen reports it took only 30 minutes to replace his lower fidelity Moon with Cesium Moon Terrain.

The Command Module Columbia looking down at the Apollo 11 landing site. Courtesy Petri Wilhelmsen.

The launch pad and spacecraft in Reentry are from asset stores, but he also makes some assets himself using Blender. The laser scan of the Apollo 11 Command Module, Columbia, for example, is from the Smithsonian Institution; Wilhelmsen modified it for Reentry to improve the panels. These assets are loaded directly into Unity.

Users in orbit see not only the Moon but also Earth—the Cesium globe via Cesium for Unity enables accurate, realistic visualizations for both enthusiastic gamers and those who are training and pushing boundaries. In the future, Wilehelmsen may incorporate Cesium World Terrain and satellite imagery for the launch areas, to add to the accuracy on Earth.

The Lunar Module preparing for descent and landing on the lunar surface. Courtesy Petri Wilhelmsen.

A number of users have remarked to Wilhelmsen that they remember events during these early space programs, and they are reliving the thrill and pride of humanity’s progress with Reentry. 

To add Cesium Moon Terrain and other curated 3D data to your simulation, sign up for a Cesium ion account.

“Reentry” Blends Gaming and Training with Cesium Moon Terrain

Editor's note: We renamed this dataset to Cesium Moon in September 2025.

Today, we are thrilled to share that Cesium Moon Terrain, the first readily accessible single, comprehensive 3D Tileset of the Moon, is now available.

Cesium Moon Terrain is composed of precise terrain and imagery from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) program and other sources, and is provided as 3D Tiles, the Open Geospatial Consortium Community Standard created by Cesium.

Cesium Moon Terrain is the first complete, precise, and readily-accessible 3D Tileset of the Moon. Sign up or Sign in to Cesium ion to explore. 

Learn more at Cesium.com

Cesium Moon Terrain

“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,” said 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 Moon Terrain visualized in Cesium for Unreal

Cesium Moon Terrain was recently demonstrated at the Digital Twin for Lunar Development Workshop held at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The workshop brought the space enterprise community together to focus on advancing digital twins for NASA and the creation of an open, interoperable platform for a lunar digital ecosystem.

As early adopters, Ansys has utilized 3D Tiles in both their Systems Tool Kit (STK) and their RF Channel Modeler software to help users easily incorporate geospatially accurate datasets into their digital mission modeling and systems modeling engineering capabilities. Users are able to directly understand impacts of terrain in challenging locations such as lunar polar regions to accurately analyze communications system designs.

The Copernicus Crater, visualized in Cesium for Unreal

Another early adopter, Buendea, is collaborating with the NASA Advanced Operations Concept Lab on developing the XR Operations Support System (XOSS) to support real-time simulations on the Moon and Mars. Buendea is interested in Cesium Moon Terrain for its potential to enhance their ongoing projects.


“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,” said Julian Reyes, Founder of Buendea.

Cesium's Dave Braig presenting at the Digital Twins for Lunar Development Workshop at NASA's JPL

To access Cesium Moon Terrain, sign up for an account, or sign in to Cesium ion and add the tileset to your Asset Library from the Cesium ion Asset Depot. Once added, create a Cesium Story, incorporate the data into a web application with CesiumJS, or build advanced visualizations with Cesium for Unreal and Cesium for Unity.

Each of these visualization engines have been updated to enable non-WGS84 based ellipsoids to support an accurate representation of the lunar surface for analysis and measurements. Cesium Moon Terrain is also available for Cesium ion Self-Hosted. 

With Cesium Moon Terrain, users can leverage the same workflows and functionality already available in our open source runtime engines. Use Cesium Moon Terrain as a base layer to place models of habitats, vehicles, or rovers on the lunar surface.  If you have your own high resolution terrain data, clip and inset it within Cesium Moon Terrain so that your projects can live within a single continuous 3D surface rather than multiple separate project areas. 

NASA's ambitious Artemis program aims to return humans to the Moon and eventually land them on Mars. With this, along with initiatives from SpaceX, Boeing, BlueOrigin and others, the demand for an open, interoperable, standards-based platform has never been greater. Cesium Moon Terrain meets this demand, providing a versatile foundation for countless applications.

We look forward to seeing your projects built with Cesium Moon Terrain! Sign up or sign in to get started.

To introduce students to the space industry, New Ascent launches “ChipSats” to gather environmental info and tracks their descent in 3D as part of MISSION: SubSpace, an in-classroom aerospace mission experience that uses an interactive web portal built on CesiumJS.

Students get their own mission control experiences with MISSION: SubSpace. Courtesy New Ascent.

Students get their own mission control experiences with Mission: SubSpace, powered by CesiumJS. Courtesy New Ascent.

Misson: SubSpace by New Ascent

New Ascent is a STEM education company, focusing on the impacts of the space industry on daily life by engaging students in grades 3-12 in real science missions. MISSION: SubSpace was released in 2023 to show young learners that they can be involved in space without being an astronaut. 

This educational experience uses ChipSats—among the smallest spacecraft, fitting into an adult human’s hand—originally developed by Cornell University and armed with sensors and radio comms. Today, New Ascent uses drones to take the ChipSats up to altitude (usually about 2-4 miles above Earth) and release them. In the future, they plan to use an in-house-developed launch system to deploy at heights above weather balloons (about 10-20 miles above Earth) but below satellites (minimum 100 miles above Earth).

As the ChipSats descend above Spaceport America in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, USA, MISSION: SubSpace populates with figures from the ChipSats, allowing students to visualize the accurate locations of their own tiny satellites in 3D and observe and analyze temperature, pressure, and other data. 

“We want to get kids involved with highly engaging tools. Visuals are huge in learning, especially STEM. The centerpiece of the portal is the 3D visualization using Cesium; it’s not just points on a map anymore,” said co-founder and CEO Rob Quigley.

New Ascent’s ChipSats are approximately 4 inches by 1 inch by 1/4 inch. US quarter for scale. Courtesy New Ascent.

As the ChipSats hurtle down through our atmosphere, they transmit and store environmental data, which is then packaged as a CSV file. This time-series data is combined with high-resolution real-world terrain and imagery from Cesium World Terrain and Bing Maps Aerial imagery via Cesium ion, streamed as 3D Tiles to CesiumJS on student laptops, which are often not as robust as those of professionals. Although the ChipSats descend in New Mexico, classrooms anywhere can access CesiumJS-powered MISSION: SubSpace. Quigley reports he has had more than 120 students signed into the web portal at once, each with their own mission control experience, observing and analyzing time-dynamic data.

MISSION: SubSpace has used CesiumJS from the start, as Quigley had relied on it for trajectory visualization for a different project years ago. With Cesium’s accuracy and ease of use, Quigley knew it would be right for students with varying degrees of tech savvy. 

“Using Cesium let us get the portal going in a matter of weeks vs. months,” said Quigley.

ChipSats transmit data about their journeys through Earth’s atmosphere, replayed for and analyzed by students using CesiumJS. Courtesy New Ascent.

New Ascent is working toward near-real-time data visualization for MISSION: SubSpace and plans to include other launch sites, including international locations, as they inspire the next generation of aerospace professionals.

Explore how students and researchers are learning about our planet and beyond with Cesium.

New Ascent Brings Space to Students with CesiumJS

Airlines have long collected flight data from multiple sensors on air vehicles, including information on unsafe landings or other procedures at airports. GE Aerospace, Software as a Service's FlightPulse app enables pilots to prepare for upcoming flights and review their final approaches in 3D with an animation module by APS Aerospace Corp., powered by CesiumJS.

Example from FlightPulse demo dataset showing unstable approach into Harry Reid International Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. App users see terrain and instrumentation in 3D. Courtesy GE Aerospace, Software as a Service.

Example from FlightPulse demo dataset showing unstable approach into Harry Reid International Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. App users see terrain and instrumentation in 3D. Courtesy GE Aerospace.

FlightPulse by GE Aerospace and APS Aerospace Corp.

FlightPulse is an iOS native app first released in 2017 as part of GE Aerospace, Software as a Service's Flight Analytics package for airlines, and 3D animation was introduced in 2022, displaying both terrain and air vehicle instrumentation. The Preflight module enables pilots to prepare for upcoming flights, homing in on specific airports and trajectories, such as holding procedures, and becoming acquainted with approaches they may not have flown before. With the Postflight module, pilots have secure access to their individual flight histories to review their own operations for improvement. Currently, more than 30,000 pilots use the app.

"Animating flights in FlightPulse using the playback functionality powered by APS and Cesium is one of the most compelling features for pilots. In talking with our customers who have deployed it, the results have shown that it drives recurring user engagement and more proactive safety debriefings," said Jonathan Morrell, FlightPulse product manager at GE Aerospace, Software as a Service.

The 3D animation module is the work of a collaboration between GE Aerospace, Software as a Service and APS Aerospace Corp. (previously Applied Informatics and Research Inc.), which has done flight data analysis and flight animation since the 1980s. APS has been using Cesium for years to share and interact with dynamic geospatial data in 3D. For FlightPulse, APS drapes Mapbox 2D imagery over Cesium World Terrain, served as 3D Tiles via Cesium ion, pairing time-series data with precise real-world locations in CesiumJS for easy interpretation and streaming to pilots’ handheld devices. Built on open formats, CesiumJS is designed for robust interoperability and scaling for massive datasets.

“WebGL and standards for 3D on the web are vital,” said JS Theriault, CTO of APS and principal technical point of contact for GE’s Cesium apps. “The Cesium component gives you the entire world. We’re a small company and could not afford to create all of this on our own.”

For 3D animations in the Postflight module, pilots see only their own flights, including those that may have triggered a safety event, such as descent speed above airline guidelines. Courtesy GE Aerospace, Software as a Service.

With 3D animation in FlightPulse, pilots are encouraged to take an active role in flight safety and fuel efficiency. 

Cesium ion includes access to curated global 3D content. Sign up for a Cesium ion account to combine these assets with your own and create an interactive aerospace app.

GE Aerospace’s FlightPulse Enables Pilots to Review Landings with CesiumJS

Observing a total solar eclipse is a unique and powerful astronomical experience. The difference between 99% and 100% eclipse coverage is vast because the disc of the sun is so bright that even 1% of it blindingly outshines all of the stars in the sky. To truly block out all of the sun high in the sky is absolutely worth the effort to see in person at least once in a lifetime!

In the United States, after many decades with no total eclipse opportunities, a pair of chances finally arrived… and is almost behind us. The first came August 21, 2017. The second is just a few weeks away: April 8, 2024. After that it’ll be 21 years until the next chance to see a total solar eclipse in the continental US (August 12, 2045).

So… where to go? And how to set oneself up for success?

Tracing the path of totality in EclipseTracks.org

Tracing the path of totality in the April 2024 solar eclipse

EclipseTracks.org

Some years ago, as the 2017 eclipse approached, I wanted a tool to plan my first encounter with a total solar eclipse. So became EclipseTracks.org, a Cesium-powered visualizer of total solar eclipse tracks across the surface of the Earth.

The versatility of the open source Cesium platform made the process of visualizing over 100 years of eclipses straightforward. Raw eclipse track data from NASA is scraped, parsed, and transmuted into CZML to be served up in a single-page web application. The full source for the application and data processing pipeline is available on GitHub.

Recent additions to EclipseTracks.org include terrain support. This will come in especially handy in 2045 as the path of totality cuts right across the core of my lovely and mountainous home state, Colorado.