NASA reference anchors — surface-hotspots v2 redesign

Context: the secondary-deliverable inspiration anchor for Issue #283. Originally lived at /tmp/orrery-mockups-nasa/REFERENCE.md for the Slice 0 visual-preview review, but /tmp doesn't persist across reboots. Re-homed under docs/reference/ so the file survives.

The 12 photoshopped mockup frames are at docs/mockups/surface-redesign/ — those are the primary design contract. This file is the why behind the design language, anchored in two NASA reference families.

Two distinct reference families NASA gets right

A. Image-extent rectangles — Perseverance location map (Mars)

Source: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance/location-map/

The base map is a low/mid-res orbital mosaic. Higher-resolution HiRISE swaths sit on top as rectangular tiles bounded exactly by their actual image footprint. The rectangle shape is the data — HiRISE strips are physical instruments and rectangular by nature.

Decisions taken from this:

• Rectangle = honest image footprint (replaces the v0.6/v0.7 circular Tier 2 disc that encoded nothing geometric).
• Hard edges between layers are acceptable when the edge is meaningful — outside the rectangle = lower-res, inside = higher-res. No fade, no curvature illusion. Compare with the legacy dark CTX disc which felt like a sticker because the shape didn't mean anything.
• Pins inside the rectangle for waypoint events (sample tubes, drill sites) — tear-drop shape, agency-tinted, separate primitive from the imagery.
• Traverse polyline as a continuous bold line, distinct from waypoint pins.
• Scale bar always visible bottom-left, in km/miles. Lat/lon readout bottom-right.

→ Implementation: Frames 04 / 05 / 10 / 11 of the mockup set (flat-patch with HUD) + SurfaceFlatPatch.svelte per ADR-062.

B. Region-of-interest rectangles — Lunar South Pole moonbase plan

Source: various NASA / JPL Artemis briefings (search "NASA Artemis III candidate landing region map" or the Shackleton Connecting Ridge graphic — public domain).

The map shows several named areas — Peak Near Shackleton Rim A, Connecting Ridge, Haworth, Malapert Massif — each as a translucent cyan quad with a label outside it. The rectangles are semantic regions of interest, not image footprints. They can overlap, they're named, they're conceptual.

Decisions taken from this:

• Rectangle = named region (replaces the legacy point + circle radius pattern).
• Translucent fill + crisp border signals "this area is interesting" without occluding terrain.
• Label sits outside the rectangle with a clean connector or just proximity — not inside the shape.
• Multiple regions visible at once without occlusion problems, because they don't carry heavy iconography.

→ Implementation: Frames 01 / 07 of the mockup set (planet-wide overview with multiple regions) + the region_bounds schema field per ADR-061.

What we deliberately do that NASA doesn't

	NASA's approach	Orrery's choice	Rationale
Sphere ↔ flat	Flat 2D throughout	Sphere wide-zoom, flat patch at deep zoom (ADR-062)	Sphere preserves "you're looking at a planet" context at wide zoom; flat patch unlocks true-scale at deep zoom
Engineering 3D models	None on the map	Rendered at Tier 1; hidden once Tier-2 region is the active representation	Lets users explore the hardware silhouettes at mid-zoom; hides them at deep zoom where they'd compete with the imagery
Marker scale	Same screen size at all zooms	True-world-scale floor (rover ~3 m, lander ~5 m) above a minimum-clickable threshold (4 px)	Develops a felt sense for how small the hardware is on the surface
Upsample warning	Accepts zoom-past-resolution as blur	Subtle vignette + microcopy "approaching native pixel limit"	Users don't read the blur as "the planet is fuzzy"

Re-pull commands (if literal annotated composites are wanted later)

# Perseverance — 4 zoom levels (URLs approximate; check current location-map page)
curl -L -o /tmp/orrery-mockups-nasa/nasa-perseverance-z1.png \
  "https://mars.nasa.gov/system/resources/detail_files/...png"

# Lunar South Pole moonbase plan
curl -L -o /tmp/orrery-mockups-nasa/nasa-shackleton-ridge.png \
  "https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/.../candidate-landing-regions.png"

Then annotate via the same Playwright/SVG pattern as the primary mockups (scripts/mockups/render-surface-mockups.mjs) — drop the NASA PNG as the background, overlay the Orrery-side mapping ("our equivalent is Frame 04") in a corner.

For Slice 0 the primary 12 frames + this written reference were sufficient. Re-pull if a future redesign needs literal NASA composites.