NASA Seeks New Crew for Second Mars Simulation in a Year

JAKARTA – NASA has opened its second Mars Simulation project on Friday, February 16. The simulation is part of the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) mission.

Through CHAPEA's dedicated website, the Mars Simulation project is open to anyone with some restrictions. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents, fluent in English, and 30 to 55 years old.

Applicants must have at least a master's degree in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), have two years of professional work experience, and have piloted an aircraft for a minimum of one thousand hours.

Applicants without a master's degree can still apply as long as they meet other requirements. All applicant data received by NASA will be selected over a period of 12 to 14 months and will be announced in 2025.

CHAPEA is a mission designed to see human capabilities while living on Mars. For 12 months, four selected crew members will be housed in Mars Dune Alpha, a 1,700-square-foot habitat at the Johnson Space Center.

While in the simulation room, the four crew members were asked to maintain the habitat and grow crops. They were also required to work on a 1,200-square-foot sandbox to simulate space travel.

The second CHAPEA mission will only open in 2025 because the first CHAPEA mission is still ongoing. The four crew on the mission had to be on a mission for 378 days and they had only completed more than half of the assignment time.