By Dexerto | Created at 2026-09-24 20:27:50 | Updated at 2026-09-24 22:20:03
2 hours ago
Valve’s Steam Deck landed a side gig far from anyone’s couch, steering a prototype Mars rover for aerospace giant Airbus.
The handheld had already spent the summer masquerading as a PlayStation, after a new cloud streaming app let owners play PS5 games on it. Still, streaming a game to a train seat is one thing, and driving a rover designed for another planet is quite another.
Airbus uses Steam Deck to steer ExoMars rover prototype
The handheld turned up after YouTuber Tom Scott visited Airbus’ facility in Stevenage, UK, for a video titled “This Mars rover’s cool. But have you seen its wheels?”
In the video, Tom explains he got “a quick course in how not to break it, and then was handed what’s basically a gaming console,” Scott said, before tapping a bumper to swing Codi’s wheels 90 degrees so it could scuttle sideways “like a crab.”
The Deck ran custom software while Scott worked its thumbsticks, triggers, and face buttons to steer the ExoMars prototype.
Engineers relied on the handheld throughout development and testing, because the finished rover will drive itself once it reaches the Red Planet. Until then, somebody still needed to drive it around on Earth.
The choice made more sense than it first seemed. As a Linux PC with physical controls, a touchscreen, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, the Deck could run specialist software that a standard DualSense or Xbox pad simply couldn’t.
And this project isn’t some small fry either. Teams toiling away in Stevenage were designing the mechanical, thermal, and propulsion systems for the platform that will land ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover on Mars in 2030.
Back in 2025, Kata Escott, managing director of Airbus Defence and Space UK, said getting it there safely would be “the culmination of more than 20 years’ work.”
It isn’t the first time gaming has reached for the stars, either. Earlier this year, a Pikachu plush spent 67 days aboard the International Space Station, circling Earth roughly 1,040 times before heading home.
