NASA’s second Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) mission is due to end Oct. 31 after 378 days, providing data to help plan future human missions to Mars.
Four volunteers reached one year inside a Houston habitat on Oct. 19, NASA said. Commander Ross Elder, medical officer Ellen Ellis, science officer Matthew Montgomery and flight engineer James Spicer entered the habitat at NASA’s Johnson Space Center on Oct. 19, 2025.
NASA is examining how isolation, restricted supplies, equipment problems and delayed communication affect a crew’s health and ability to work. The agency intends to use what it learns to shape future mission plans and habitat design.
The volunteers live in a roughly 1,700-square-foot habitat built using 3D printing. They have cultivated crops, worked within resource limits and practiced walks on a simulated Martian surface. NASA’s one-year update did not report quantitative health or performance findings from the study.
Contact with family has been limited to email subject to a simulated communication delay, NASA said. The restriction is one part of the conditions the volunteers have experienced while researchers study how a crew functions during a lengthy mission.
The first CHAPEA crew also spent 378 days in the same habitat, leaving on July 6, 2024. NASA has scheduled the current crew’s exit for Oct. 31, followed by two weeks of evaluations and debriefs.
