By Kurtis Archer | 2026-07-10

Moviegoers who have watched cinematic scenes unfold on Mars or alien planets may be unknowingly familiar with the otherworldly terrain of Jordan's Wadi Rum.

The red sands and stark sandstone mountains of the desert area, also known as the "Valley of the Moon," have frequently stood in on the silver screen for the Red Planet and the desert moons and planets of science fiction.

Located in the southern part of the kingdom, Wadi Rum's history with the film industry goes back a long way, with the epic historical drama Lawrence of Arabia (1962) establishing it as a go-to desert destination for filmmakers.

Its dramatic landscape, which was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2011, has been used as a backdrop for science-fiction blockbusters such as Mission to Mars (2000), Prometheus (2012), and The Martian (2015).

Both of Denis Villeneuve's adaptations of Dune (2021 and 2024) were filmed there, as well as two Star Wars films.

In Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) scenes of the fictional desert moon of Jedha are filmed in Wadi Rum; while in the spinoff Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019) Wadi Rum stands in for the planet Pasaana.

"I was in awe of that place, it was really, really special," The Martian star Matt Damon told Yahoo Entertainment in September 2015, ahead of the film's release.

He described Wadi Rum as "one of the most spectacular and beautiful places I have ever seen, and like nothing I’ve ever seen anywhere else on Earth."

Real-world laboratory

The Jordan Space Research Initiative (JSRI) is now transforming Wadi Rum's cinematic terrain into a real-world scientific laboratory through "analog studies."

This enables it to stand in for other worlds in a whole new way.

Because Wadi Rum so perfectly mimics the terrain of worlds like the moon and Mars, it can serve as a testing ground for both astronauts and future space missions.

NASA describes analog studies as high-stakes field tests conducted in some of the most extreme and isolated environments on Earth.

Analog missions enable scientists and astronauts to test out new technologies and see how crews handle the mental stress of isolation. Crews practice surviving the hazards of spaceflight, all with their boots safely planted on Earth.

"Anything intended to ensure the survival of astronauts and a successful research mission millions of kilometers away from Earth must first be tested in a safe environment," said Austrian Space Forum analog astronaut Anika Mehlis.

"Analog research simulates the work of astronauts in Mars-like or lunar-like environments on Earth," Mehlis told the Jordan Times last October.

"We test equipment and workflows and look for weak spots to ensure everything runs smoothly during actual deployment," she explained.

"This method makes it easier to understand the advantages, but also the limitations, of future astronaut missions to alien planets."

High-impact contributions

Jordan, which signed the Artemis Accords in April but as yet has no official state space agency, is a relatively new player in the space sector. Yet the kingdom has made high-impact contributions to global space exploration already.

Founded in 2020, JSRI is the kingdom's nongovernmental representative body for space exploration.

JSRI runs a flagship space simulation program called Psychological, Environmental, and Technological Research Analog (PETRA), which has demonstrated the success of analog studies.

In 2024, Jordan's first analog mission, PETRA-1, served as a pilot program to test logistics and human factors in the desert.

PETRA-2 followed in 2025, when Jordan took part in the World’s Biggest Analog, a globally synchronized space simulation campaign hosted by the Austrian Space Forum and synchronized by the Mission Coordination Center in Vienna.

As a direct result of Jordan's Artemis Accords accession, preparations are now under way to host NASA's first official analog mission in Wadi Rum in November.

JSRI emerged after an independent, four-member team led by interdisciplinary aerospace engineer and sustainability researcher Sahba El-Shawa took part in the 2020 Participation of Emerging Space Countries program in Vienna.

The program, organized by the Moon Village Association, was designed to help emerging countries get into the space game.

The Jordanian team quickly realized the kingdom had a unique role to play, and put together a 20-year strategic roadmap for its space participation.

Thus JSRI was born.

Community-based model

In 2023, El-Shawa was awarded the International Astronautical Foundation Emerging Space Leader Grant, and at the International Astronautical Congress, she took to the stage to pitch JSRI's master plan.

This roadmap showed exactly how Jordan could join the global space race, while supporting the United Nations Space2030 Agenda goals of sustainable development and peaceful governance of space.

It called for an analog R&D facility for moon and Mars simulations in Wadi Rum; and for solving Earth-space sustainability challenges around water resource management, renewable energy, and desert agriculture, per ScienceDirect.com.

The roadmap also included a social master plan that explicitly partners with the local Bedouin communities of Wadi Rum, integrating them into the logistics, tourism, and operations of the space analog habitat.

This is intended to ensure that space research creates economic opportunities and supports local livelihoods on Earth, while simultaneously addressing the issues future astronauts will face in space.

As the majestic backdrop of this distinctively Jordanian space program, and of many other space programs and movies to come, Wadi Rum continues to look the part.