Virtually reality in orbit

While astronauts are well trained and familiar with the Station’s many facilities, it is impossible to prepare for everything they might face during a mission. On-board training is a regular feature of an astronaut’s activities while in space. This training usually takes the form of short videos that help crew get familiar with potentially unexpected tasks and tasks for which there simply wasn’t time to extensively train on-ground.

As human exploration moves beyond low-Earth orbit to unfamiliar lunar territory, on-board training may play an even more important role. This is where virtual reality comes in. VR-OBT (short for Virtual Reality Ob-Board Training) is a joint German Space Agency at DLR and ESA technology demonstration which seeks to find effective ways to deliver on-board training to astronauts through virtual reality. Virtual reality has been proven on Earth to aid in retention and be an effective tool for training in complex and even dangerous tasks. Both NASA and ESA use virtual reality extensively to train astronauts on the ground and now, through VR-OBT, virtual reality is taking flight.

During his Cosmic Kiss mission in 2021-22, ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer tested VR-OBT which uses a French Space Agency CNES-supplied headset. Space is a challenging environment; micro-gravity, altered magnetic fields, and cosmic radiation can all pay havoc with spaceborne electronics. Ultimately the VR headset performed better than expected but it was clear that some work is still needed to make VR a regular part of life on orbit. This story is to be continued, with further testing in the planning.