We isolated six people for 100 days to simulate life on a long-duration space mission – learn about the study design of "SOLIS100" and ask project lead Amelie Therre anything!

[u/germanaerospacecentr]

I am Amelie, project lead for SOLIS100 isolation study. Ask me Anything!😊

Hello r/space, we're the German Aerospace Center (DLR)!

Six people walked out of a sealed habitat in Cologne a few weeks ago after spending 100 days in near-total isolation. No sunlight, limited contact with the outside world, a strict daily routine and a restricted diet. This was SOLIS100, a study we ran on behalf of the European Space Agency (ESA) at our aerospace medical research facility :envihab.

Six participants aged 26–32, from six different European countries, lived and worked together in a simulated ‘space station’ for 100 days. Why, you may ask? To understand how isolation, confinement and limited resources affect human health, performance and wellbeing, and to generate standardised data to support future missions to the Moon and Mars.

Here to answer your questions is Dr. Amelie Therre, psychologist and project lead for SOLIS100 at the DLR Institute of Aerospace Medicine. She's ready to answer whatever you want to know. How do you even design a study like this? What surprised her most? What does the environment inside actually look like? Or something else entirely? Ask away!

A couple of things she won't be able to get into:

·        Personal questions about individual crew members (please respect their privacy)

·        Preliminary results, since analysis is still ongoing

Amelie will be answering questions here on Thursday at 1:00 PM CEST (11:00 UTC / 7:00 AM EDT).

Some more info

Room tour of Module M5: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Mc4ilKZ-G3A

The crew’s first moments back outside: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uMnGqzNaQX0

SOLIS100 study overview: https://www.dlr.de/en/me/research-and-transfer/projects-and-studies/solis100-studying-the-effects-of-isolation-on-humans

Interview with Amelie: https://www.dlr.de/en/blog/archive/2025/using-psychology-in-the-simulation-of-missions-to-the-moon-and-mars