They generally use earplugs and a sleep mask to block out the noise and light. In the weightless environment of space, the carbon dioxide (CO2) that astronauts expel could form a bubble around their head.

A total of 852 sleep logs were collected, 96 reports had mentioned using sleep promoting drugs, and 18 reports had mentioned using sleeping pills twice [7]. Further statistical analysis showed that sleeping problems, space motion sickness, and pain remained the top 3 complaints among astronauts.

September 21, 2025 - Fatigue due to sleep loss, sleep shifting and work overload could cause performance errors that put space flight participants at risk of compromising mission objectives as well as the health and safety of those on board. Sleeping in space requires that astronauts sleep in a crew cabin, a small ...

September 16, 2025 - Evidence from short and long-duration missions and other relevant environments suggests that environmental factors (e.g., noise, temperature, vibration, and light) inhibit sleep and impact well-being in space.

February 3, 2025 - Light is the main synchronising cue for our internal body clock, and light also suppresses the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin. So exposure to – or absence of – light at inappropriate times disrupts our bodies’ circadian rhythms and ...

May 12, 2023 - Astronauts have dark, quiet and private crew quarters on the space station conducive to good sleep — but that won’t always be the case on other space missions, said Dr. Erin Flynn-Evans, director of the Fatigue Countermeasures Laboratory at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. Like their historic Apollo predecessors, the Orion capsules that will be used during future Artemis missions to the moon are small vehicles with limited space for crews and sleeping bags for rest periods.

Both the ability to sleep and the quality of sleep appear to be reduced in space flight, making hypnotic use in space relatively common—45% of all medications taken by 219 astronauts on 79 shuttle missions were hypnotics for sleep disturbances, and they were used throughout the mission (4). Although current hypnotics are relatively safe and effective for sleep initiation, they cannot solve the more ubiquitous problem of reduced sleep duration in space flight.

March 14, 2022 - To examine the consequences of ... durations of 6 h or less are associated with slower psychomotor speed, increased negative somatic behavioral states, and elevated stress....

July 7, 2023 - Evidence consistently indicates a loss of sleep and circadian rhythm disruption during low-Earth orbit missions. Sleep duration is shortened especially the night before a critical operation and during circadian-misaligned sleep episodes.

June 11, 2021 - For people living on the International ... important: disruptions can lead to fatigue and mood changes as well as metabolic disorders, heart disease and gastrointestinal problems — not to mention accidents on the ...

July 30, 2025 - So you may have differences in preference for temperature level during sleep, and the astronauts get creative in the way they solve those problems. When it comes to airflow, there are little knobs that can be turned to increase or decrease the airflow, but of course on the space station, we ...

September 5, 2024 - Combine the light and the noise ... time it takes the space station to circumnavigate the Earth) insomnia and sleep deprivation are a common and serious problem ......

May 30, 2018 - A total of 852 sleep logs were collected, 96 reports had mentioned using sleep promoting drugs, and 18 reports had mentioned using sleeping pills twice [7]. Further statistical analysis showed that sleeping problems, space motion sickness, and pain ...

October 30, 2018 - In this light, disrupted Circadian rhythm or visually induced arousal frequency due to flashes of light generated by possible interaction between cosmic ray particles and the eye can be among the potential causes of sleep problems in astronauts. The quantification of the light flash was addressed by Fuglesang et al. [8]. These researchers indicate that about 50% of the astronauts noted the flashes were too irregular to determine their frequency. Only 20% of the astronauts suggested that the light flashes sometimes disturbed their sleep. Given the critical nature of space travel having 20% of the crew in a sleep deprived state could have a critical impact on mission success.

August 7, 2024 - They sleep near an air vent to avoid this potential lack of oxygen to the brain. Brain cells are sensitive. In less than five minutes, brain cells can start to die without oxygen. Brain hypoxia can cause brain damage, or worse, death. Space is silent, but a spacecraft is not.

After landing on the moon in 1969, Astronaut Neil Armstrong was reportedly unable to sleep all night and Astronaut Buzz Aldrin managed only “a couple of hours of fitful drowsing” during their 21.6 hours on the moon, reportedly because they could not escape from light and noise in the small ...

With continuous lack of sleep, language, memory, and even sense of time start to be severely affected. In contrast, as little as seventeen hours of continued wakefulness leads to a decrease in performance comparable to an alcohol level of 0.05%. In addition, Sleep science shows that sleep-deprived humans also have trouble responding to rapidly changing situations and making rational judgments.

November 16, 2021 - While the International Space Station ... about 72 degrees (warmer than the best temperature for sleep), leading to frequent sleep disturbances....

September 21, 2025 - An evaluation of astronauts serving on the Mir space station found that they experienced shorter sleep durations, more wakefulness, and changes in the structure of their sleep cycles while in microgravity.

May 5, 2025 - “Is it easier to fall asleep in low gravity?” and other spaceflight questions, answered by two NASA sleep scientists.