The hour before the start of the VR mission is free time, and thus you may describe how your character spends the time as you see fit.
You can spend the entire time in the pilot quarters, have a conversation or two with someone, and so on.
After the hour is up, the next event, which is the VR mission, will start.
If anyone wants to, I'm open to collabing for conversations with my characters such as Elora, Ritsu or even Lorenzo during free time.