ISS Astronauts utilizing HTC’s VIVE Focus 3 VR headset

February 16, 2024 – HTC VIVE has introduced that following last year’s profitable deployment of its VIVE Focus 3 digital actuality (VR) headset onboard the Worldwide House Station (ISS) to help astronauts’ psychological well being, the mission has now been expanded to incorporate bodily well being.

In keeping with the corporate, the VIVE Focus 3 is now getting used as a part of very important train routines onboard the ISS. The European House Company’s (ESA) Andreas Mogensen, Commander of the ISS at some stage in his six-month mission, has been utilizing a FERGO train bike and VR expertise constructed by the Danish Aerospace Company.

Thomas A.E. Andersen, CEO, Danish Aerospace Firm, said: “Supporting bodily well being of astronauts in microgravity is crucial, not only for the success of a mission however for long-term well being, and it truly helps with psychological well being as properly. Our first train bike, CEVIS, functioned for over 20 years on the ISS and gave us quite a lot of insights. FERGO is a superb improve, and mixing it with VIVE’s VR experience implies that astronauts will be extra engaged with train and hopefully additionally extra motivated.”

The Worldwide House Station is a difficult surroundings (pictured above), as it’s small, confined, noisy, and visually sterile. To fight this sterile and bland inside, Mogensen wears a VIVE Focus 3 and has a visually and bodily matched expertise when biking now. While biking, surroundings strikes in time, and with info from the VIVE Focus 3 despatched through Bluetooth to FERGO, the astronaut experiences extra resistance while biking uphill or on totally different surfaces within the VR expertise.

In keeping with Jeremy Curtis, an skilled from the UK House Company, astronauts can lose as much as ‘40% of muscle and 12% of bone mass’ in 5 months while in house, and that “… the muscle loss is the equal of a 20-year-old turning right into a 60-year-old over a interval of three months.” In truth, upon returning to Earth, some astronauts have spent as much as 12 months in bodily rehabilitation to regain full health. In consequence, whereas in house astronauts should train for 2 hours day by day simply to try to decrease the results of microgravity.

“The deployment of VIVE Focus 3 on the ISS for psychological well being was an unimaginable milestone, and we’re excited to construct on this success by increasing the initiative to incorporate help for astronaut bodily well being,” mentioned Cher Wang, Chairwoman and Co-Founding father of HTC. “At HTC, we’re pushed by a tradition of innovation and we’re continually looking for out new methods to push cutting-edge immersive know-how to learn humanity. VIVE Focus 3 being the primary standalone VR/XR headset to work within the microgravity circumstances of house is a testomony to our group’s efforts, and may have a terrific influence on Earth and past.”

Commenting on the usage of the headset, Mogensen mentioned: “One of many issues I like about this digital actuality set, is the sound – listening to the sound of the birds chirping, listening to the sound of the wind blowing via the reeds and thru the leaves. I like that and it’s one thing I miss [about earth].”

The digital biking routes obtainable to Mogensen have been filmed in his native Denmark and embody: Loekken, Silkeborg, Svanninge Bakker, Odense Aasti, and the Copenhagen Lakes.

For extra info on HTC VIVE and its VR options, click on here.

Picture credit score: HTC VIVE / Danish Aerospace Firm