Nasa unveils 'Mars' habitat for year-long experiments

Four small rooms, a gym and a lot of red sand -- Nasa unveiled on Tuesday its new Mars-simulation habitat, in which volunteers will live for a year at a time to test what life will be like on future missions to Earth's neighbour.

The facility, created for three planned experiments called the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA), is located at the US space agency's massive research base in Houston, Texas.

Four volunteers will begin the first trial this summer, during which Nasa plans to monitor their physical and mental health to better understand humans' fortitude for such a long isolation.

With that data, Nasa will better understand astronauts' "resource use" on Mars, said Grace Douglas, lead researcher on the CHAPEA experiments.

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Image by Freepik

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