The CHAPEA Mission 1 crew reflects on their year inside of a simulated Mars habitat and shares their perspectives of what it takes to be a successful Martian crew member. HWHAP Episode 347.
Houston, we have a podcast.
Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space center, episode 347, after a year on Mars.
I'm Gary Jordan, and I'll be your host today on this podcast, we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers, and astronauts, all to let you know what's going on in the world of human spaceflight and more.
The Chepa crew has wrapped up their mission.
Chepea, or crew health and performance exploration analog, was a year long analog mission in a habitat right here on Earth that simulated very closely what it would be like to live on Mars.
Every month for a full year.
The four person crew, Commander Kelly Hasten, flight engineer Ross Brockwell, medical officer Nathan Jones, and science officer Anka Salaryu, carved out just a bit of time to keep us up to date on how they were doing and how they were feeling.
For me, this was a very special experience, like checking in with a family member that's studying abroad in some distant land.
The analog study simulated the time delays that a martian crew would have to undertake, so there was no way for us to have a live conversation.
Instead, the crew recorded short audio logs of their experiences that month based off of some of the questions that we draft for them.
On July 6, 2024, they finally egressed or exited the Habitat and have remained here in Houston for some post mission research in quarantine.
But after almost two weeks, I was able to have a live sit down conversation with all four of them for the first time in a year.
I was very excited to have this experience, and it was great to speak with all four, who, unsurprisingly, are in high spirits.
Here's the Chepea mission one crew, after successfully completing the analog study.
Enjoy.
Mark Vicious start, t zero.
We have a podcast, the crew of Chapia.
Mission one.
So great to be with you today.
This is awesome.