After 378 days in a simulated Martian habitat, the four volunteers for NASA’s year-long simulation of a stay on the Red Planet are coming home. The crew — Kelly Haston, Anca Selariu, Ross Brockwell and Nathan Jones — is expected to leave the 3D-printed habitat in Houston tonight. You can watch a livestream of their return on NASA TV (below) beginning at 5 p.m. ET.
This marks the end of NASA’s first Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) mission. Plans are already underway for two more year-long missions, for which NASA recently accepted applications.
The Mission 1 crew entered the 17,000-square-foot habitat at the Johnson Space Center on June 25 of last year and has spent the months since then conducting simulated Mars walks, growing vegetables and performing other tasks designed to support life and work in that environment, such as habitat maintenance. No exact dates have been set for the second CHAPEA mission, but it is expected to launch in the spring of 2025.