PlanetMars3D: Spirit Mission launches on 30 July 2026, bringing NASA Spirit rover Pancam photographs into an explorable Universe3D space with manual exploration, slideshows, and automated flythroughs.
Universe3D is expanding into a new world: Mars. On 30 July 2026, PlanetMars3D: Spirit Mission will release as a dedicated 3D viewer for curated imagery from NASA’s Spirit rover.
Instead of presenting rover photographs as a flat gallery, Spirit Mission arranges real Pancam images into explorable 3D albums. You can glide between views, jump directly to points of interest, or let the app guide you through the collection with a slideshow or automated flythrough.
A 3D way to revisit Spirit’s journey
Spirit landed in Gusev Crater in January 2004 and operated for more than six years, returning an extraordinary visual record of the Martian surface. PlanetMars3D: Spirit Mission focuses on a hand-picked selection from the public Pancam archive, organized around mission highlights and locations including Gusev Crater and the Columbia Hills.
What to expect
- Curated Pancam albums built from real Spirit rover photographs.
- Game-like 3D exploration powered by Universe3D.
- Progressive detail: skim many images at once, then see sharper versions as you approach.
- Jump-anywhere navigation for quickly flying to an image in the 3D view.
- Manual mode, slideshow mode, and automated flythroughs.
- Viewing options for UI scale, display settings, transitions, and quality.
Powered by Universe3D
PlanetMars3D: Spirit Mission and Album3D are both built on Universe3D, the 3D technology behind our game-like photo experiences. Universe3D is what makes it possible to move through large collections of high-resolution photographs as continuous 3D spaces rather than a click-wait-click gallery.
PlanetMars3D: Spirit Mission is a dedicated viewer for the Spirit rover Pancam archive. It does not create or edit personal photo projects; for that, see Album3D.
Steam release
PlanetMars3D: Spirit Mission releases on 30 July 2026. The Steam page is available at .
Photo credit: D. Savransky and J. Bell / JPL / NASA / Cornell / ASU. Imagery credit belongs to NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/ASU. PlanetMars3D: Spirit Mission is independent and unaffiliated with NASA, JPL-Caltech, Cornell, ASU, or Valve.