After 378 days inside a simulated Mars habitat, the four NASA volunteers who spent a year simulating their stay on the Red Planet are returning home. The crew—Kelly Haston, Anca Selariu, Ross Brockwell, and Nathan Jones—are scheduled to leave the 3D-printed habitat in Houston this afternoon. You can watch a live stream of their return on NASA TV (below) beginning at 5:00 p.m. ET.
This marks the end of NASA's first Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) mission. There are already plans for two more one-year missions, for one of which NASA recently accepted applications.
The Mission 1 crew entered the 1,700-square-foot habitat at Johnson Space Center on June 25 of last year and has since spent the months conducting mock ground walks, growing vegetables and performing other tasks designed to support living and working in that environment, such as habitat maintenance. Exact dates for the second CHAPEA mission have not yet been set, but it is expected to begin in spring 2025.
