Photo: NASA (CHAPEA Mission 2 crew inside the habitat)
On 31 October 2026, four volunteers walked out of a 3D-printed habitat at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, where they had lived since 19 October 2025 as if they were on Mars. Ross Elder, Ellen Ellis, Matthew Montgomery and James Spicer made up the second crew of CHAPEA, NASA's Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog, and spent 378 days inside.
Key facts
The crew entered the habitat on 19 October 2025 and came out on 31 October 2026, after 378 days.
The habitat is a 3D-printed, 1,700-square-foot space with private quarters, a kitchen, medical, fitness and work areas, a crop-growing area and two bathrooms.
Inside, the crew carried out simulated Marswalks, grew crops, tested systems and lived with limited resources and delayed communication with Earth.
NASA says the next analog mission, combining parts of CHAPEA and its HERA habitat, can begin no earlier than August 2027.
Why it matters
A real Mars crew will be far from help for years. Watching how four people stay healthy, fed and productive for more than a year, with slow calls home and limited supplies, gives NASA data on food, health and workload that it cannot get any other way before people go.
Worth noting
This was a ground simulation: the crew lived in Earth's gravity in a hangar in Houston, not in space. It was the second of three planned CHAPEA missions; the first crew came out in July 2024. NASA has not yet said when the results will be published.