Halfway in, and cut off from mission control, NASA’s latest Mars simulation crew is pushing through a two-week communications blackout inside its Houston habitat.

The four CHAPEA mission 2 crew members marked 200 days of their 378-day mission on May 7. The blackout is designed to mimic a Mars-Earth loss of signal when Mars moves behind the Sun.

During that period, the crew works without contact with mission control and uses preplanned procedures and available resources to complete tasks and handle any issues that come up.

The CHAPEA, or Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog, mission 2 crew entered the 3D-printed habitat at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Oct. 19 last year. The crew is commanded by Ross Elder, with medical officer Ellen Ellis, science officer Matthew Montgomery, and flight engineer James Spicer. They are due to exit on Oct. 31, in about six months.

“I’m proud of the crew’s accomplishments over the past 200 days, facing each challenge with fortitude and finding new ways to improve our performance and efficiency daily,” Ellis said.

The crew is now more than halfway through the mission and continues to provide NASA with data on how humans adapt to isolation, confinement, and resource limitations for future exploration of the Moon and Mars.

“We approach every day committed to doing our best work, whether we’re doing a simulated spacewalk, geology, exercise, a medical activity, or anything in between,” Spicer said. “What keeps us motivated is knowing that we’re contributing directly to NASA’s deep space exploration objectives.”

Inside the 1,700-square-foot habitat, the crew has completed robotic operations, performed habitat maintenance, and grown crops. Crew members also deal with delayed communications, limited supplies, and simulated equipment malfunctions.

NASA said those stressors are designed to help researchers understand how crews perform under pressure during deep space missions.

“Having limited resources, be it tools, equipment, software, supplies, or no internet, really bounds what you have to solve problems,” Montgomery said. “Finding creative and clever solutions has been both challenging and rewarding.”

A main goal of the CHAPEA missions is to gather data on cognitive and physical performance during extended isolation. Researchers monitor how the crew adapts to the environment, manages stress, and maintains productivity.

NASA said the data will be used to refine mission planning, habitat design, and support systems for future long-duration missions.

“Extended-duration missions are relatively rare in NASA’s history to date,” said Sara Whiting, project scientist and mission manager at Johnson for NASA’s Human Research Program. “The operational lessons learned, along with the detailed health and performance data this crew is providing, come at the perfect time to inform the development of a sustainable lunar presence and longer-term objectives for crewed Mars missions.”

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