Amateur Radio Operators Command ESA Satellite to Launch Doom via Voice
An Oslo radio amateur group and Tanagra Space successfully triggered the 1993 game Doom on a European Space Agency satellite using voice commands transmitted over amateur radio frequencies from an Earth-based antenna.
A modest setup—roughly 80 watts of power and a manually directed antenna positioned on an Oslo rooftop—proved sufficient to communicate with an orbiting spacecraft. Radio enthusiasts from Oslo partnered with Tanagra Space to instruct an ESA satellite to execute the classic 1993 shooter Doom by issuing a voice command across the 23 cm amateur radio band. The effort required seven total attempts, conducted jointly with a Polish radio group, before success arrived on two consecutive occasions in late July. After the satellite's onboard speech recognition model, which occupies 27 MB of storage, converted the audio to text, a matching algorithm identified the command and initiated the game launch. The satellite responded by transmitting a postcard containing launch confirmation details.
The spacecraft involved, designated OPS-SAT PRETTY, operates as part of the ESA's OPS-SAT Space Lab initiative, which invites external researchers to conduct experiments aboard the platform. The voice-activated Doom execution took place under an experiment bearing the tongue-in-cheek title PRETTY DOOMed. Although Doom previously ran on the OPS-SAT-1 satellite during 2023, that earlier instance differed fundamentally: the game launched through conventional means rather than through spoken instruction from the ground.