Four crew members completed a yearlong simulated Mars mission on October 31, 2026, as part of NASA's Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) program. Matthew Montgomery, James Spicer, Ross Elder, and Ellen Ellis spent more than a year in the simulation testing systems, maintaining crops, managing limited resources and communication delays, and conducting extravehicular activities.
The crew's experiences will inform NASA's design of its future Moon Base and planning for Mars missions. NASA used the analog to study how crews adapt to long-duration stays in isolated environments.