Sol Atlas
A layered, game-style Marswalk planner built on real NASA Mars data.
The SOL Explorers · NASA Space Apps Challenge 2026 · challenge: Interplanetary Survival Guide: Martian Map
Live demo: https://sol-atlas.netlify.app · Project log: PROJECT_LOG.md · Handoff for developers and AI assistants: AGENTS.md · AI use: AI_DISCLOSURE.md
In The Martian, Mark Watney survives by doing the maths himself: oxygen, distance, daylight, terrain. Sol Atlas does that maths for the first crews. It stacks data from five NASA missions and ESA's Mars Express on one 3D map, finds the safest route for a walk on foot to any point you pick, and checks whether the astronaut gets home with oxygen to spare. If the plan comes up short, the EVA simulation shows exactly where the suit runs dry. Then you can put on the helmet and walk the real terrain at eye height.
This is the phase-1 prototype made for the 240-second local-judging video. Jezero Crater is the only site unlocked; the other landing sites are marked "phase 2".
Contents
How it works
Sol Atlas has three levels. You move between them by scrolling, like zooming from a system map down to a planet surface in a space game.
1. Orbit
A rotating Mars with real Viking colour, MOLA relief, a thin dusty atmosphere, Phobos and Deimos. Ten landing sites are marked. Layer 4 lays the USGS Geologic Map of Mars (SIM 3292, from the USGS-NASA Planetary Geologic Mapping Program) over the globe; point at any spot to read its rock unit and age. Jezero sits in unit HNt on the rim of the Isidis impact basin, ground more than 3.2 billion years old. Press Z (or Human Exploration Zones under Display) to show the 38 Exploration Zones NASA's 2015 workshop proposed for the first human landings, each with a 100 km radius. Jezero and our Marswalk zone sit inside the Jezero-Isidis-Syrtis zone, 51 km from its centre: the site we plan for is one NASA's own human-mission planners put forward. Scroll in and the camera locks onto Jezero; scroll again, or click, to descend. A live mission clock shows the Perseverance sol, local time at Jezero, the Martian season and the current Earth–Mars signal delay.
| Geologic map (layer 4) | NASA's proposed human Exploration Zones (Z) |
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2. Jezero Crater
The whole crater (89 × 101 km) as a 3D block, built from the orbital imagery and elevation model NASA prepared for Perseverance. The terrain is lit by the real Sun position, with shadows that move as you drag the time-of-day slider.
| Crater | Elevation + contours |
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The gold line is Perseverance's real drive path: 555 end-of-drive positions from NASA/JPL's mission waypoint feed, sol 0 to 2022 (October 2026, 45.25 km). It runs from the landing site, around Séítah, across the delta and up the crater rim. Layer 7 toggles it.
3. Marswalk zone
A 6 × 6 km zone around Perseverance's landing site, Séítah, the delta front and the Three Forks sample depot, built from a 25 cm per pixel HiRISE mosaic and a 1 m elevation model. This is where you plan the walk:
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