4 Astronauts Start Living Inside Mars Dune Alpha To Be Studied for Simulated Red Planet Missions

Four astronauts moved to a mock Mars for the CHAPEA - Mission 1 Sunday. They will be living in the simulated Red Planet for a year.

4 Astronauts Are Living in a Mock Mars

Kelly Haston, Ross Brockwell, Nathan Jones, and Anca Selariu relocated within a mock Mars outpost at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Scientists will study and research them from a distance. Haston, Brockwell, Jones, and Selariu are the first of three CHAPEA crews to provide information to the space agency on how to build better and prepare for upcoming human missions to the actual Martian surface, Space.com reported.

At 7:30 p.m. tonight GMT: 2330 EDT (June 25), the four volunteers entered the "Mars Dune Alpha," a 1,700-square-foot (158-square-meter) habitat, to begin Mission 1. They will stay in the 3D-printed building, save for the occasional Mars walk inside the adjacent, enclosed space that is 1,200 square feet (111 square meters) until July 7, 2024.

According to Suzanne Bell, NASA's Behavioral Health and Performance Laboratory manager at Johnson Space Center, the mission was exciting. One of the differences from some of their previous analogs at NASA is that the crew will be isolated for 378 days. They will also do analog in Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA), where they will stay for 45 days. Additionally, they gather data across various time periods at various analogs, but this particular protracted isolation will consist of three missions that will last over a year.

Bell added that the crew was picked to be "astronaut-like," with a prerequisite to having a degree in one of the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and professional expertise in their chosen sector, piloting experience, or military training. To ensure they were qualified for the program, they had to complete the same physical and psychological exams as astronaut candidates.

The mission's leader is Haston, a research scientist specializing in human disease. The crew's flight engineer is structural engineer Brockwell. Jones, an emergency medicine serves as the medical officer. Meanwhile, Selariu, a microbiologist in the United States Navy, serves as the science officer.

Prior to the mission's launch, Selariu was supposed to be a backup crew member. However, she took the position of advanced practice nurse Alyssa Shannon. NASA did not explain the change's cause.

Along with enduring more than a year of close quarters, Haston, Brockwell, Jones, and Selariu will also need to adapt to some of the same changes that a crew on Mars would experience.

ALSO READ: NASA Will Design New Lunar Terrain Vehicle Like Mars Perseverance or Curiosity Rover

What Is CHAPEA- Mission 1?

Mission 1 is the first of three simulated one-year expeditions to Mars. The mission's main objective is to evaluate human performance and health in isolation and confinement about resource limits on Mars.

The crew members will live and work in a replica Mars habitat at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, with communication hiccups and environmental stressors to gather enough data. Along with other activities, the crew will participate in research experiments, simulated spacewalks, crop cultivation, and habitat upkeep.

According to Bell, the main focus of CHAPEA is resource constraints similar to those on Mars, with isolation and constrained living spaces among them. However, they also limit the crew's access to other resources, a spaceflight food system, time-delayed communications, mission-relevant timescales, and contingency circumstances.

Messages from Mars Dune Alpha will take 22 minutes to arrive, the same amount of time it would take for a call from Mars to reach Earth. A mission control and safety console will be manned at all times.

The crew will not need a special toilet because they are not imitating Martian gravity, which is 38% of Earth's surface gravity. Instead, they will be eating freeze-dried, thermostabilized, and shelf-stable consumables.