Two Quest 3 headsets are soon heading to the International Space Station to train astronauts for spacewalks before they exit the hatch for real.
Meta says it's the result of a "six year collaboration" with the European Space Agency (ESA).
Quest 3 will be far from the first XR headset to arrive at the ISS.
All the way back in 2015, Microsoft sent an original HoloLens AR headset to the ISS with a Remote Expert Mode so ground crews could help astronauts with repairs and a Procedure Mode that overlaid equipment tutorials for novel systems.
In 2017, Oculus sent a Rift VR headset to the station where ESA astronauts Thomas Pesquet and Alexander Gerst used it for microgravity neuroscience experiments.
And in 2023, HTC sent up a Vive Focus 3 to support astronaut mental health by providing 360-degree immersive videos of serene locations on Earth.
For all three previous missions, the headset's tracking system had to be heavily modified to work properly in microgravity. On Earth headsets use the accelerometer in their IMU (inertial measurement unit) to measure the gravity vector to align to the orientation of the ground, but trying to use this in space would cause constant drifting. For the Rift mission, Oculus swapped out the Rift's Constellation tracking system for a third-party solution better suited to be customized for microgravity. Meanwhile, HTC modified the Vive Focus 3 tracking system to track one of the controllers fixed onto a wall as an anchor point, so the headset has a fixed point to align its movement to.
For Quest 3 now, the modification is less extreme. According to Meta, the team behind the Travel Mode shipped in 2024, originally for airplanes and now supporting trains too, have extended it to work in microgravity too. Planes, trains, and space stations – that has a ring to it.
David Heaney
The Quest 3 spacewalk training will be part of the station's swan song era. In-orbit construction of the ISS began in 1998, and the ageing station is currently set to be deorbited in 2031, with private companies taking the mantle of human presence in Earth orbit while the countries behind the ISS, with the notable exception of Russia, are moving on to build the Artemis Moon Base instead.
When they arrive on the Moon sometime in the 2030s, the inhabitants of the Artemis base will almost certainly have headsets of their own, with all the significant advancements in XR technology we expect to see over the next 5-10 years. As well as the applications for training, headsets could improve the quality of life for these deep space astronauts, giving them a private cinema for entertainment and virtual relaxation environments to feel as if they're back home.
You Can Visit Space Stations In VR At Home
While astronauts sometimes use VR to feel like they're on Earth, you can do the opposite at home to feel like you're on the International Space Station with Mission: ISS. It's free, available on Quest and the Meta PC VR store.
Charles Singletary
David Heaney
You can also visit one of the planned private successor stations to the ISS in Vast Haven-1 VR, which is also free and available on the Meta Horizon Store for Quest, Apple's App Store for Vision Pro, and Steam for PC VR.
