NASA is using virtual reality to train for moon missions

When astronauts head to the moon, they will serve as the eyes, hands, and interpreters on the ground, working closely with teams of scientists on Earth. 

NASA is turning to virtual reality (VR) to create high-fidelity, budget-friendly training that prepares crew members, flight controllers, and science teams for the agency’s upcoming Artemis missions on the lunar surface.

Two worlds colliding 

The Artemis III Geology Team, led by principal investigator Brett Denevi from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, participated in an Artemis III Surface Extra-Vehicular VR Mini-Simulation – referred to as a “sim” – at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in the fall of 2024. 

The sim brought together science teams and flight directors and controllers from Mission Control, who practiced running science-focused moonwalks and tested how they communicate with each other and with future astronauts.

“There are two worlds colliding,” said Matthew Miller, co-lead for the simulation and exploration engineer. “There is the operational world and the scientific world, and they are becoming one.”

NASA mission training has traditionally included field tests that can demand months or years of preparation and require large teams to orchestrate. 

Virtual reality can provide a more nimble alternative, enabling faster setups to keep pace with the urgency of readying astronauts for lunar landings, all while mindful of limited time, budgets, and travel constraints.

Advantages of VR for moon training

Field training remains essential since nothing can fully replicate physically handling rocks or tackling the strenuous aspects of extravehicular activities, but VR offers specific advantages. 

The Artemis III VR Mini-Sim used authentic lunar surface data from one of the Artemis III candidate sites, allowing the science team to concentrate on mission objectives and traverse planning directly applicable to the moon.

Eddie Paddock, engineering VR technical discipline lead at NASA Johnson, and his team relied on data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and on planetary positions over time to build a virtual software environment replicating a site within the Nobile Rim 1 region near the lunar south pole.

In the Prototype Immersive Technology lab at Johnson, two stand-in crew members donned VR headsets, performed simulated moonwalk traverses, and streamed suit-mounted virtual camera footage and audio to another location, where flight controllers and science teams mimicked real-time ground communications.

Training for the moon

Working across such different perspectives, the flight operations team and the science team are refining how they operate together. 

The flight control team’s priority is keeping crew and spacecraft safe while minimizing risk, whereas the science team, as Miller noted, is “relentlessly thirsty” for as much information as possible. Simulations of this kind ensure these two sides have ample practice blending their goals and procedures.

Denevi described the flight control team as a “well-oiled machine,” emphasizing how committed they are to assisting the science team. Many flight controllers have immersed themselves in geology fieldwork and classes to gain a deeper understanding of the Artemis science objectives.

“They have invested a lot of their own effort into understanding the science background and science objectives, and the science team really appreciates that and wants to make sure they are also learning to operate in the best way we can to support the flight control team, because there’s a lot for us to learn as well,” Denevi said. 

“It’s a joy to get to share the science with them and have them be excited to help us implement it all.”

Future moon exploration

This simulation is merely the beginning for VR in Artemis preparations. Going forward, mixed reality could give crew members a more immersive environment where they can handle genuine objects in conjunction with VR-based scenes. 

Now that the Nobile Rim 1 landing site model exists in VR, NASA can enhance it for continuous crew training – something not easily replicated in terrestrial field trials.

While the word “virtual” shows up in the project title, the lessons learned are significant. 

“We are uncovering a lot of things that people probably had in the back of their head as something we’d need to deal with in the future,” Miller said. “But guess what? The future is now. This is now.”

As NASA moves closer to sending astronauts back to the moon through Artemis, VR-based training looks set to play a central role in preparing flight and science teams for the demanding but rewarding work of studying the lunar environment – and laying the groundwork for humanity’s next step into deep space exploration.

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