NASA Challenge_[@elementrobotics]_[LunarSim] (closes #50)

[mazm0002]

LunarSim

Resolves #50, depends on space-ros/docs#36 and space-ros/simulation#39

This PR adds a Gazebo Garden based lunar world demo to spaceROS. The features included in this PR are:

• A world with a lunar terrain that is derived from a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the area around the Shackleton Crater (close to the South Pole) taken from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA).
• A dynamic model of the Sun that accurately depicts the low light conditions near the lunar south pole by using ephemeris data from NASA's Horizons application.
• Improved lunar surface texture created by blending surface normals with high resolution sand texture.

This package serves as a foundation for creating a realistic lunar simulation that the community can further expand upon. To support this, we have provided comprehensive documentation that guides users through the process of preparing and adding their own DEMs, ephemeris data, and custom textures. These tutorials can be found in our space-ros/docs PR ( space-ros/docs#36)

Instructions on how to run the demo can be found in the README. This image builds on top of the spaceROS base image and follows the format used in other demos for consistency.

[ivanperez-keera]

@mazm0002

This PR puts a lot of data in the demos repo (156000 lines more according to Github, and several megabytes worth of data). I believe some of that would belong in the https://github.com/space-ros/simulation/ repo, since it's models and such.

Can you please take a look at that repo, see how other demos are structured, see what would make sense to store there from your submission, send a PR to that repo, and adjust this one accordingly?

Thanks!

[ivanperez-keera]

Hi @mazm0002 Just following up on this.

[mazm0002]

Hi @ivanperez-keera, apologies for the delay. I've moved the world assets to the simulation repo and made a PR there space-ros/simulation#39. I'm pulling the assets into the demo docker by adding the fork of the simulation repo to the demo_manual_pkgs.repos file. This means that once the assets have been merged, the demo_manual_pkgs.repos file needs to be updated in this PR to point to the upstream simulation repo. Let me know if there's a better way to go about this.