Heinicke has lived on Mars. Well, almost. The physicist and engineer has spent twelve months at a research base under Mars-like conditions. On the barren slopes of the Mauna Loa volcano, she lived with five other volunteers in isolation from the rest of humanity together. They shared a small dome-shaped habitat which they could only leave in mock space suits and where all their communications with the outside world were restricted to time-delayed emails.

Upon returning to her terrestrial home in Germany in 2016, she recently started working at the Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity, where she designs and constructs a prototype for a base on the Moon.

When she is not on simulated Mars, Heinicke enjoys traveling and spending time in Nature. In 2008, she spent the spring semester at MIT, where she studied the dynamics of wind-blown wheat fields.