For more than a year, the four-person crew aboard NASA’s Mars Dune Alpha simulation communicated, ate, slept and conducted research as if they were stationed on the Red Planet, more than 200 million miles away.
The mission will be the first completed part of NASA’s Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) planned three-program program, which will last 378 days and launch on June 25, 2023.
Kelly Haston, Anka Serariu, Ross Brockwell and Nathan Jones emerged from their 1,700-square-foot 3D-printed habitat at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, last weekend to thunderous applause.
“Hello. It’s really great to be able to greet you all,” said Haston, CHAPEA’s commander. Press conference When she comes out of her habitat.
The program, which NASA says could send astronauts to Mars as early as the 2030s, was established to study how crews would respond to the conditions and constraints of a year-long mission.
“Mars is our goal,” Steven Corner, associate director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, said at a press conference Saturday. “As global interest and capabilities in space exploration continue to expand, America is poised to lead the way,” Corner said, adding that “the completion of the CHAPEA-1 mission is an important step toward this goal.”
Daily activities for the crew during the mission included simulated spacewalks, robotic operation, habitat maintenance, exercise, and growing crops.
According to NASA, the CHAPEA crew simulated realistic communications delays on Mars of up to 22 minutes each way, including messages with Mission Control and communications with the crew’s friends and family outside the mission.
With no fresh food deliveries, team members were limited to prepackaged, storable foods and the ability to grow some crops during the mission.
According to NASA, the crop-growing system within the CHAPEA habitat is similar to those used in indoor home gardens and can support the cultivation of leafy vegetables, herbs and small fruits.
“We are grateful for the opportunity to put into practice the idea that we should not use resources faster than we can replenish them and we should not create waste faster than we can reprocess it into resources,” crew member Brockwell said at a press conference.
According to NASA, Mars Dune Alpha has four separate sleeping quarters for the crew, with a total interior area of 1,700 square feet. The living quarters include bathroom and shower areas, a kitchen, a living room with a table and furniture, and dedicated areas for fitness and laundry.
“We’re looking for someone who can help us with that,” Suzanne Bell, director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center’s Behavioral Health and Performance Institute, told ABC News in February, as the space agency was recruiting for the second mission.
“We will mimic what would be expected from a Mars surface habitation mission,” Bell said, “so we can gather all kinds of data and learn how humans might survive and thrive in those conditions.”
The next CHAPEA mission is scheduled for spring 2025, with the third due to launch in 2026.
Bell said the three missions were designed to eliminate “any anomalies in specific crew members or individuals.”
“We’re looking at how we can best support people in these situations for their wellbeing, and we’re starting to see trends that we can interpret to best support people in the future,” Bell explained.
To be eligible for the program, volunteers must be healthy, non-smoking U.S. citizens or permanent residents, between the ages of 30 and 55, and fluent in English.
Crew members must have a STEM-qualified master’s degree and field experience, or a minimum of 1,000 hours of aircraft piloting experience, or the required military experience.
“I’ve been asked many times: why Mars? Why go to Mars?,” said crew member Serariu after the mission concluded. “Because we can do it,” he continued. “Because space connects us and brings out the best in us. Because it’s a decisive step that will light the way for Earthlings into the next century.”