NASA has selected a team of four volunteers to participate in a simulated trip to Mars inside a habitat at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Abhishek Bhagat, Kamak Ebadi, Susan Hilbig and Ariana Lucic will enter the HERA (Human Exploration Research Analogue) ground center on Friday, January 26 to live and work as astronauts for 45 days during a simulated mission to the Red Planet. . Crew members will leave the facility on March 11 after “returning” to Earth. Two additional volunteers are available as backup crew.

Without leaving Earth, HERA allows scientists to study how crew members are adapting to the isolation, confinement and working conditions astronauts will experience during future spaceflights. Crew members will perform scientific, operational and technical tasks while experiencing communication delays of up to five minutes with the outside world as they “approach” Mars.

The new crew will participate in 18 human health studies during the mission simulation. The experiments will evaluate the psychological, physiological and behavioral responses of crew members millions of kilometers away from their home planet. Ten studies are new to HERA; seven of these are led by scientists outside the United States. These international studies are the result of collaboration with the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center in the United Arab Emirates and the European Space Agency (ESA).

The upcoming mission represents the first of four simulated missions to Mars that researchers will complete with HERA in 2024. Each mission will involve a separate team of four astronaut-like research volunteers. The last mission should end on December 16th.

NASA’s Human Exploration Program, or HRP, seeks the best methods and technologies to support safe and productive human space travel. Through research conducted in laboratories, ground counterparts, and the International Space Station, HRP carefully examines how spaceflight affects human bodies and behavior. Research like this pushes HRP to seek innovative ways to keep astronauts healthy and mission-ready as space travel expands to the Moon, Mars and beyond.