If you thought a week’s isolation after getting pinged during Covid was bad, how would you feel about spending 378 days inside? Eating freeze-dried food? And with a 22-minute delay on all messages?

That’s the reality for four Nasa crew, who on Sunday began the agency’s first Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog, or Chapea, mission, simulating life on Mars.

Kelly Haston, Ross Brockwell, Nathan Jones and Anca Selariu will all spend the next 12 months inside Mars Dune Alpha, a 1,200 square foot 3D-printed habitat complete with mod-cons including an oxygen generator, treadmills and, thanks to Earth’s gravity, a regular toilet, rather than a space one.

The team will be remotely observed and studied as they go about life within the habitat to help better understand how life on Mars may be achieved. 

‘What Chapea is really about is Mars-realistic conditions in terms of resource restrictions, so isolation confined with the living space being one of them,’ said Suzanne Bell, lead for Nasa’s Behavioral Health and Performance Laboratory at Johnson Space Center, speaking to collectSPACE.com. 

‘But we’re also restricting the crew to a spaceflight food system, time delayed communications, mission-relevant timelines, contingency situations and other resource restrictions.’

Each of the crew was selected on similar criteria for astronauts – they have a degree in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and significant experience in their professional field, piloting experience or a military background.

Ms Haston is a research scientist, and will serve as the mission’s commander. Mr Brockwell is the flight engineer – he is a structural engineer in real life. Mr Jones, a doctor, is the crew’s medical officer, and Ms Selariu is the science officer.

Ms Selariu, a microbiologist in the US Navy, was initially a back-up crew member, but was called up at the eleventh hour to replace Alyssa Shannon. Nasa did not disclose why Ms Shannon was no longer taking part.

‘To me, this is really exciting, because one of the things that’s different than some of our previous analogs at NASA is, people will be in isolation as a crew for 378 days,’ said Bell.

‘We also do analogs in something called Hera, the Human Exploration Research Analog, and our missions there have been 45 days. And then we collect data at other analogs, too, with varying lengths, but this will be three, over one-year long missions, which is a really great extended isolation.’

MORE : Take a look inside Nasa's Mars simulation habitat - where four crew members will live and work for a year

Paying tribute to the crew before they entered the simulation, Chapea principal investigator Grace Douglas said: ‘Thank you all for your dedication to exploration. Our best wishes go with you as you being this adventure of discovery.

‘The knowledge we gain here will enable us to send humans to Mars and bring them home safely.’

The habitat the crew will call home was 3D-printed using lavacrete, a common ‘ink’ used for printing structures.

Mars Dune Alpha also includes a small ‘outside’ area where the crew will conduct Mars walks – but only after donning appropriate gears and passing through an airlock.

And while money isn’t much use on Mars – the real one or otherwise – the crew will reportedly be paid $10 per hour for all waking hours. The Houston Chronicle has calculated they could earn up to $60,480 for the mission.

Prospective candidates for the second and third missions should keep an eye out on nasa.com – although unfortunately only US citizens are eligible.

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