Colin Kim
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
The satellite that just happened to be there.
“A Spacecraft For All” is a Chrome Experiment that follows the amazing 36 year journey of the International Sun/Earth Explorer 3 (ISEE-3) spacecraft. Our team worked closely with the space scientists at Project ISEE-3 Reboot, who formed to revive the spacecraft on its journey back to Earth for the benefit of citizen science. You can read the entire story here.
On “A Spacecraft for All” you can watch an interactive documentary of its odyssey in WebGL over film, read its live instrument data, and view a live simulation of it’s position and trajectory in our solar system.
And on August 10th, 2014 as the ISEE-3 made a long-awaited pass of the Moon, we held a Live Lunar Flyby event webcast for the entire world (detail below).
Please visit the site for the full interactive experience here, and make sure you are using Chrome.
The Site
The site tells the entire story of the ISEE-3 from it's original launch in 1978, through missions in orbit and chasing comets, to being decommissioned by NASA, to re-activating with the help of Project Reboot, to it's route past our Moon, all with WebGL over film and constant interaction throughout. You can also read it's live data, and see it's current position.
The Film
The interactive film tells the ISEE-3 with a web storytelling first - WebGL layered over documentary footage - so people can interact with the story throughout. The film is broken up into five chapters spanning throughout the spacecraft's years. This example of the film doesn't accurately show the interactive nature of the site, because it's running on a video player. Visit the site for the real interactive version.
The Live Lunar Flyby
On August 10th, 2014 we held a Live Lunar Flyby Google Hangout event at Team Reboot's McMoon Headquarters in California. The hour and half event brought together team members, scientists from around the world, tv space personalities, with special guests the ex-NASA ISEE-3 scientists from it's original launch. As viewers watched the webcast, they could see the ISEE-3 pass the moon with a live flyby demo on the site.
The Mission Gear
We made an official patch and poster for the team to mark this historic project.
The Team
Creative Lab worked with the scientists at Project Reboot, who had the crazy idea to revive an old spacecraft for citizen science, and made this all possible.
The Press
We launched the website days before the lunar flyby, and immediately the world shared the story. So far It has generated 100 million global social impressions with mentions in NY Times, Gizmodo, FastCo Design, Popular Mechanics, Mashable, The Next Web, Engadget, and many more.
FWA Site of the Day, August 2014
FWA Mobile Site of the Day, August 2014
FWA Site of the Month, August 2014
Awwwards Site of the Day, September 2014
Awwwards Site of the Month, September 2014
Communication Arts, November 2014