After 378 days without windows, the sounds of the outside world, or real-time calls with family and friends, four research volunteers stepped out of NASA’s Mars Dune Alpha habitat on Oct. 31, completing the agency’s second yearlong Mars surface simulation.
Ross Elder, Ellen Ellis, James Spicer, and Matthew Montgomery entered the roughly 1,700-square-foot, 3D-printed habitat at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Oct. 19, 2025, for CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog) Mission 2.
The crew participated in simulated Marswalks, robotic operations, habitat maintenance, exercise, and crop cultivation.
“Their work means more than completing a mission,” said Johnson Director Vanessa Wyche. “It is about preparing for the challenges of human exploration beyond Earth, gathering the knowledge we need to protect crew health and performance, and paving the way for future missions to the Moon and, one day, Mars.”
NASA astronaut Jack Hathaway put the crew’s time in isolation into perspective: While they were inside the habitat, he completed a 237-day mission aboard the space station and returned to Earth.
During that same period, the Artemis II astronauts traveled around the Moon and set the record for the farthest humans have traveled from Earth. NASA also celebrated 25 years of continuous human presence aboard the International Space Station on Nov. 2, 2025.
“The reality of what you guys did here required immense physiological and psychological strength, teamwork, and human grit,” Hathaway said.
Supported by researchers and ground teams across the agency, the CHAPEA crew collected health and performance data while navigating limited resources and communication delays of up to 22 minutes each way.
Two weeks of post-mission evaluations and debriefs will help researchers interpret the crew’s data alongside their experiences. The study builds on the first CHAPEA mission, which concluded July 6, 2024.
Grace Douglas, CHAPEA’s principal investigator, said the research will help NASA weigh human health and performance risks against resources, including crew time, communication capacity, and food and water system designs. She also noted that many resource challenges facing space explorers mirror problems on Earth.
Sara Whiting, CHAPEA project scientist, said the data comes as NASA plans how astronauts will live and work at the Moon Base, humanity’s first lunar outpost near the Moon’s South Pole.
“This is really the now moment for this kind of data,” she said.