NASA’s astronauts return after a year living on simulated Mars

NASA held a ceremony over the weekend to welcome four brave astronauts back to Earth after spending a year living and working on Mars. To survive, the crew had to grow their own food to supplement their rations, deal with half-hour long communication delays with Earth, and learn to live and work together in somewhat tight quarters.

But unlike most previous NASA missions, where capsules splashed down in the ocean or shuttles landed on long runways, to recover these astronauts, Deputy Director of the Johnson Space Center Steve Koerner simply opened up the door to the habitat and welcomed the crew back to Earth.

The mission was all part of NASA’s Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog — or CHAPEA — program, which is designed to test how long people can live, work and survive on other planets. The CHAPEA environment is completely simulated, and is comprised of  a 1,700 square-foot habitat divided into both living quarters for the crew and working spaces, like laboratories and utility areas.

The entire facility for the program was 3D printed, which may be how NASA will construct future buildings on Mars that could house human explorers. Everything about the mission was conducted to simulate an actual Martian environment, including having the four astronauts stay in the habitat for a year. They were also only able to talk to Mission Control using standard communications methods, with a long delay imposed on them to simulate the distance between Earth and Mars.

The four astronauts were allowed outside their habitat on occasion, but only when wearing environmental suits equipped with virtual reality headsets that simulated Mars. We got to see what those VR missions looked like last year during the MarsXR challenge, a competition where the public can compete to design virtual Mars missions to be used for training future explorers.

Some of the winning entries for the MarsXR challenge demonstrated just how realistic those VR training simulations have become in recent years. For example, one of the winning entries from Team Savchenko involved collecting rock samples on Mars, while another from MarsXR Odyssey simulated an emergency where one astronaut’s EV suit malfunctioned. 

While there were no emergencies during the first CHAPEA mission, collecting rocks and other samples outside of the habitat in a simulated environment was a big part of the activities that the participants undertook. As both the realism and user interfaces of the simulations continue to improve, the hope is that they can be incorporated directly into future missions to make CHAPEA and other training activities even more realistic.

The mission began on June 25, 2023, with four crew members. They included Commander Kelly Haston, Science Officer Anca Selariu, Flight Engineer Ross Brockwell and Medical Officer Nathan Jones. It ended 378 days later, on July 6, 2024.

The four crew members looked pretty excited to be exiting the habitat, which had become their home for over a year. Their contributions were not just technical — helping NASA scientists to learn what works and what needs improvement before the agency can seriously consider actually sending people to Mars — but also added to the field of behavioral science. NASA was able to observe what it would be like when four strangers are forced to live together with no ability to leave the situation. Thankfully, it seems like the first four CHAPEA astronauts got along very well.

“During this mission, these people have given an incredible richness of shared experiences and conversations,” Haston said, “I am humbled that being away on a one year Mars analog mission brought me closer to those I was with and also those who I left back at home.”

Brockwell also enjoyed the experience and commented on some of the many lessons learned.

 “I’m grateful for the chance to live out the idea that we must utilize resources no faster than they can be replenished, and produce waste no faster than it can be processed back into resources,” he said. “We cannot live, dream, create or explore for any significant time frame if we don’t live these principles. But if we do, we can achieve and sustain amazing and inspiring things like exploring other worlds.”

While the first CHAPEA mission has finished, and NASA scientists have a lot of work to do in analyzing over a year’s worth of collected data and observations, the program is far from over. A second mission is already in the works, and NASA is actively recruiting brave and enterprising people for a third. Those with the required skills who would like to spend a year or more living and working within a pretty close approximation to a Martian habitat are encouraged to apply to become a pioneer who can help advance both science and the future of space travel.

John Breeden II is an award-winning journalist and reviewer with over 20 years of experience covering technology. He is the CEO of the Tech Writers Bureau, a group that creates technological thought leadership content for organizations of all sizes. Twitter: @LabGuys