NASA’s Scott Kelly wearing a HoloLens headset on the International Space Station. (Via Microsoft)

Microsoft this morning posted an initial picture of NASA astronaut Scott Kelly wearing the company’s HoloLens holographic headset on the International Space Station — part of a collaboration between the Redmond company and the U.S. space administration.

The initiative, dubbed “Sidekick,” currently uses the HoloLens in two modes: “Remote Expert Mode,” which connects to operators on the ground who can see what the astronaut is viewing through the HoloLens and annotate the scene to provide real-time guidance for complicated tasks; and “Procedure Mode,” which augments the view through the HoloLens with animated holographic illustrations, on top of the real world.

The Sidekick project was explained in this recent talk by NASA’s Jeff Morris.Earlier this week, Microsoft’s Alex Kipman demonstrated HoloLens at the TED conference in Vancouver, B.C., showing an example of “holographic teleportation.” Microsoft will be delivering $3,000 HoloLens kits to developers sometime this quarter, but the company has yet to announce a price or launch date for the consumer versions.

Quelle: GeekWire