NASA’s first simulated one-year Mars mission ends in Houston

NASA’s first simulated one-year mission to Mars has ended.

The mission, the first in the CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog) series, began on June 25, 2003, when four volunteers were locked in a simulated Mars habitat at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston.

The quartet left the habitat on Saturday (July 6), returning to normal Earth life after a staggering 378 days.

The four CHAPEA-1 volunteers were Kelly Haston, Anca Selariu, Ross Brockwell and Nathan Jones. For over a year, they have been living on Mars Dune Alpha, a 158-square-metre 3D-printed habitat designed to resemble an isolated outpost on the Red Planet.

The quartet’s experiments aboard Mars Dune Alpha will inform NASA’s planning for actual manned missions to the Red Planet, which the agency hopes to launch in the late 2030s or early 2040s.

“For more than a year, the crew simulated Mars mission operations, including ‘Mars walks,’ grew and harvested several vegetables to supplement their shelf-stable food, maintained their equipment and habitat, and operated under additional stressors that a Mars crew will face, including communication delays with Earth, resource limitations, and isolation,” NASA officials wrote in a CHAPEA-1 mission description.

Related: Visit the fictional Mars habitat where 4 NASA analog astronauts will spend the next year (video)

NASA celebrated the quartet’s departure with a “welcome home” ceremony at JSC on July 6.

“CHAPEA-1 was a unique experience, with great challenges, joys and sorrows and a lot of hard work, with a good dose of fun too,” Haston, who commanded the mission, said during the livestreamed event.

“I am honored to see that being on a year-long Mars analogue mission brought me closer to those I was with and those I left behind,” she added.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 10 p.m. ET on July 7 with news of the CHAPEA-1 crew’s exit from the Mars Dune Alpha habitat.

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