According to a recent news article, “NASA has partnered with Epic Games and Buendea to launch a new competition to create virtual reality scenarios that replicate extravehicular activities on the surface of Mars.“

This isn’t the first Mars VR challenge hosted by NASA. The first first MarsXR competition launched in May 2022 to help NASA prepare and plan for a trip to Mars while conducting activities.

The article continues,

“The NASA MarsXR 2 Challenge is hosted on the HeroX crowdsourcing platform to support the development of a VR testbed environment simulating Mars’ gravity, weather conditions, terrain, and day and night hues, HeroX said Thursday.

Participants will use Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5 to create scenarios for the new Mars XR Operations Support System environment, including assets for human expeditions, such as suits and rovers.

Scenarios developed from the competition will be used to test procedures and expose researchers to an immersive and realistic spacewalk experience. Selected winners will receive $70,000 in total prizes.”

Original article here.