Four volunteers have been locked inside a simulated Mars habitat and if all goes to NASA’s plan, the volunteers will be out of the experiment in a year.
NASA’s Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) mission is the first of three planned simulations of life on the surface of Mars.
The crew, which includes a microbiologist and a doctor, will take on the roles of astronaut as flight engineer, medical officer, science officer and commander while staying in their 3D-printed 1,700-square-foot “Mars Dune Alpha” habitat, the NASA reports. POT.
CHAPEA will simulate the conditions crews on a Mars mission would face, including limited resources and communications delays lasting between 5 and 20 minutes.
They will also face simulated equipment failures and other “environmental stressors,” plus the crew will carry out activities like simulated walks outside the habitat on Mars and other scientific investigations.
“The analog is critical to testing solutions that meet the complex needs of living on the Martian surface,” said Grace Douglas, principal scientist for NASA’s Advanced Food Technology research effort at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, in a 2021 press release.
“Simulations on Earth will help us understand and counter the physical and mental challenges astronauts will face before they leave,” Douglas added.
Previous efforts have been made to simulate long-term life on another planet, with mixed results. Simulations conducted by Scientific International Research In Unique Terrestrial Station (SIRIUS Project) and Mars-500 found that crews began to live more autonomously as communication delays increased.
Although positive in the sense that any crew on Mars would have to perform tasks alone, there were concerns of potential disconnects between astronauts on the surface and mission control on Earth.
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