A crew of four volunteer explorers entered NASA's CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog) habitat on Oct. 19, marking the start of the agency's second 378-day simulated mission to Mars.
Ross Elder, Ellen Ellis, Matthew Montgomery and James Spicer are living and working inside the roughly 1,700-square-foot 3D-printed abode at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston until Oct. 31, 2026.
“The information and lessons learned through CHAPEA will inform real-world mission planning, vehicle and ground habitat design, and other resources NASA needs to maintain crew health and performance as we move beyond low-Earth orbit,” said Sarah Whiting, project scientist for the Human Exploration Program. “With these lessons, NASA's Human Exploration Program is reducing risks to human health and spaceflight performance to enable safe and successful human missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.”
The crew will face the challenges of a real Mars mission and will only go to perform simulated “Mars Walk” activities directly outside the habitat, wearing space suits to traverse a simulated Martian environment filled with red sand. During their Mars walks, they will remain isolated inside the building that houses NASA Johnson's CHAPEA.
“These crew members will help provide foundational data for mission planning and vehicle design, and inform the interplay of resources, methods and technologies that best support health and performance in a life-on-Mars environment,” said Grace Douglas, CHAPEA principal investigator. “The information obtained from these simulated missions is critical to NASA's goal of sending astronauts to explore Mars.”
Over the coming year, the crew will perform a series of activities designed to replicate life and work on a long-term mission on Mars, including high-speed simulations of Martian walks, robotic operations, habitat maintenance, exercise and crop cultivation. The mission also aims to study how the crew adapts and responds to various environmental stressors that might occur during a real Mars mission, including limited access to resources, prolonged isolation, 22-minute communication delays and equipment failures. Researchers will study how the team copes with these conditions, which will serve as the basis for future protocols and plans for future crewed missions to Mars.
CHAPEA's first missionheld in the same habitat, ended on July 6, 2024.
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NASA Human Exploration Program
NASA Human Research Program is developing methods and technologies to ensure safe and productive human spaceflight. Through scientific research conducted in laboratories, ground-based counterparts, commercial missions, the International Space Station and the Artemis missions, the program studies how spaceflight affects human bodies and behavior. Such research drives the program quest develop innovative ways to keep astronauts healthy and mission ready as human space exploration expands to the Moon, Mars and beyond.
