Updated

Four NASA volunteers left the CHAPEA Mars simulation habitat on October 31, 2026, ending an experiment that kept them isolated for more than a year. The crew were Matthew Montgomery, James Spicer, Ross Elder and Ellen Ellis, and the experiment was run through NASA's Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog program. During the mission the volunteers grew crops, conserved limited supplies, operated and tested essential systems and carried out simulated spacewalks, which NASA uses to study how crews might work outside their living quarters. They also had to cope with communication delays of the kind future Mars explorers would face, so they needed to solve problems and make decisions with more independence. ScienceDaily, reprinting NASA material, said the findings will help NASA plan future Moon and Mars missions, including its planned Moon Base, although the crew never left Earth.