It has been every week since NASA locked 4 people inside a mock Mars habitat for the following 12 months and we have just received our greatest glimpse yet at what life contained in the simulated space base is like.
Positioned at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Texas, the 3D-printed mock-Martian base, generally known as Mars Dune Alpha, is the house of the agency’s first-ever Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) mission for crewmembers Kelly Haston, Ross Rockwell, Nathan Jones and Anca Selariu for the following 12 months.
That is the primary of three CHAPEA missions NASA is using to research how one can best design and plan for future missions to Mars. The four-person crew will live and work contained in the habitat while coordinating with mission control operators to conduct activities much like those expected of an actual astronaut crew, actually on Mars, including the 22-minute communication delay that exists between Earth and the red planet.
Mars Habitat Tour 📹 CHAPEA, or Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog, is @NASA’s first one-year ground-based mission that can simulate living on @NASAMars. The crew will live and work on this 3D-printed, 1,700-square-foot habitat.MORE: https://t.co/aA6dSIRWLG pic.twitter.com/fgiznfV0uUApril 22, 2023
While the CHAPEA-1 quartet perform their duties, NASA researchers can be keeping their eyes on the crew themselves. How they interact with their habitat, and with one another, over the course of their year-long stay will provide crucial data that may inform every part from furniture layout and meal planning, to crew assignments and equipment upkeep.
Related: 1 12 months on ‘Mars:’ NASA analog astronauts begin mock Red Planet mission
For the CHAPEA-1 crew, Mars Dune Alpha offers 4 separate sleeping quarters, with a 1,700 square-foot total interior. A video posted to a NASA Twitter account earlier this 12 months gives a fast tour of the habitat and its adjoining 1,200-square-foot enclosure used for simulated EVAs (extra-vehicular activities) the crew will take to “explore” the Martian surface.
The walk through Mars Dune Alpha reveals the row of crew quarters in a hallway across from a rest room and shower area. That hall turns at its end to an area setup for small-scale produce production, which sits adjoining to an open kitchen and recreation area with a table lounge furniture.
A doorway across the communal space results in work area with a desk and shelving for equipment. Rooms on either side house fitness and laundry machinery, and robotics control stations and a 3D printer. One other doorway within the open work area incorporates a small medical bay, which sits across from the habitat’s primary airlock.
Simulated Martian soil and the backdrop of red, rocky cliffs line the structure’s partitions to supply the CHAPEA-1 crew as full immersion as possible while they perform EVAs and other mission research. They may use this area for his or her only egresses from Mars Dune Alpha until their “return” to Earth on July 7, 2024.
Until then, the Martian sandbox on the opposite side of the habitat’s airlock can be the analog astronauts’ only likelihood for a change of scenery.