A European Space Agency Satellite Just Played Doom in Orbit
A tiny satellite in low-Earth orbit recently fired up a 1993 first-person shooter entirely by voice command. Playing video games was never part of the design plan for the PRETTY cubesat, operated by a consortium that includes the European Space Agency.
A tiny satellite in low-Earth orbit recently fired up a 1993 first-person shooter entirely by voice command. Playing video games was never part of the design plan for the PRETTY cubesat, operated by a consortium that includes the European Space Agency. Yet this demonstration of orbital voice control points toward more practical space applications.
Amateur radio operators in Norway spent 59 days and about $775 on the project, fueled largely by pizza. Their early attempts failed because the satellite's receiver channel was too wide to catch a human voice. After narrowing that channel, a rooftop transmission in Oslo successfully commanded the spacecraft to boot up Doom.
Our read suggests that if hobbyists with a tiny budget can reconfigure commercial-grade space hardware for voice commands, automated emergency relays on orbit are much closer than manufacturers admit. Voice-recognition software already handles accents and background noise on Earth, but space presents unique hurdles like Doppler shift. Despite an antenna not built for voice relays, open-source tools like GNU Radio and Sherpa-ONNX bridged the gap.
The ultimate goal is not demon-slaying in space, but automated disaster response.
The team hopes future satellites might use on-board artificial intelligence to listen for distress calls or analyze deep-space radio signals.
For now, the successful test proves that ground stations can talk directly to spacecraft and actually get a playable game in return.
The story so far
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Original publication: 9 November 2026 16:30
