CHAPEA Mission 2 Egress Event

After more than a year spent isolated and confined on a simulated Mars mission, NASA's four-person volunteer crew will "return" to Earth on October 31, 2026. The crew of four stepped inside NASA’s CHAPEA (Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog) habitat on Oct. 19, 2025. Ross Elder, Ellen Ellis, Matthew Montgomery, and James Spicer have been living and working for 378 days inside the roughly 1,700-square-foot 3D-printed habitat at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. They have conducted simulated spacewalks and habitat maintenance, grown crops, and managed communication delays and limited resources. The mission helps researchers understand how crews adapt to isolation and confinement to better prepare for future long-duration space missions.