The inaugural crew of CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog) is “back on Earth” after emerging from their simulated Martian habitat at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on July 6. The first of three simulated missions, CHAPEA Mission 1 was designed to help scientists, engineers and mission planners better understand how life on another world might affect human health and performance.
Kelly Haston, commander, Ross Brockwell, flight engineer, Nathan Jones, medical officer, and Anca Selariu, science officer, lived and worked in an isolated 1,700-square-foot 3D-printed habitat to support human health and performance research to prepare for future missions to Mars.
“Congratulations to the CHAPEA Mission 1 crew for completing a year in a simulated Martian environment,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Through the Artemis missions, we will use what we learn on and around the Moon to take the next giant step: sending the first astronauts to Mars. CHAPEA missions are critical to developing the knowledge and tools needed for humans to one day live and work on the Red Planet.”
The crew exited the habitat and returned to the arms of family and friends after a simulated 378-day mission to the surface of Mars that began on June 25, 2023.
This high-fidelity simulation involved the crew performing various types of mission objectives, including simulated Marswalks, robotic operations, habitat maintenance, training and crop growing. The crew also faced intentional environmental stressors in their habitat, such as resource limitations, isolation, and confinement. For the next two weeks, volunteers will complete post-mission data collection activities before returning home.
“We spent the last 378 days planning many of the challenges that crews might face on Mars, and this crew dedicated their lives during that time to achieve these unprecedented operational objectives,” said CHAPEA principal investigator Grace Douglas. “I look forward to diving into the data we’ve collected, preparing for the CHAPEA 2 Mission and ultimately, a human presence on Mars.”
As NASA works to establish a long-term presence for scientific discovery and exploration on the Moon through the Artemis campaign, analog missions like CHAPEA provide scientific data to validate systems and develop technology solutions for future missions to Mars.
Two additional one-year CHAPEA missions are planned, with the next target to begin in 2025. Subsequent missions will be nearly identical, allowing researchers to collect data from more participants to expand the data set and provide a broader perspective on Mars influences realistic resource limitations, isolation and limitation on human health and performance.
NASA has several other avenues for collecting isolation research, including the Human Exploration Research Analog, Antarctica, and other analogs, as well as human spaceflight missions on the International Space Station to ensure that key research goals can be completed to inform future human missions to the Moon. and Mars.
The simulated CHAPEA missions are unique because they test the impacts of isolation and prolonged isolation with the addition of realistic Martian Earth communication time delays—up to 44 minutes round-trip—along with resource constraints important to Mars, including a more limited food. system that can rely on the space station and other analogues.
To see the crew’s exit ceremony from their habitat, visit here.
Under NASA’s Artemis campaign, the agency will lay the groundwork for long-term scientific exploration of the Moon, land the first woman, first black person and its first international astronaut partner on the lunar surface, and prepare for human expeditions on Mars for the benefit of all.
Learn more about CHAPEA at:
www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/chapea/