NASA CHAPEA 2 Crew Exits 3D-Printed Mars Habitat After 378 Days

A habitat with no windows

The habitat covers about 158 square meters and has no windows. Communications were delayed by 22 minutes in both missions to mimic the real distance to Mars. CHAPEA 1 ran from 25 June 2023 to 6 July 2024.

The new element this time was a simulated communications blackout lasting two weeks. It tested whether the crew could solve problems on their own, without instructions from a control center. They also had to ration limited supplies and live under stress in a confined space with people they had not known beforehand, which may carry psychological effects that researchers want to study.

How it compares

The earlier HI-SEAS project in Hawaii (2015–2016), funded by NASA, used a smaller habitat of around 110 square meters with six crew members. CHAPEA puts more emphasis on astronaut autonomy. Neither project beats Russia's Mars-500, in which six volunteers spent 520 days isolated, though that experiment simulated the flight to Mars rather than a stay on the surface.

What comes next

NASA says it will use the findings to prepare crews for Mars and also for future lunar bases. However, the agency has not published results from either CHAPEA mission. So far there are only some statements from project scientists, with nothing on what was actually learned.