News tagged with mars500

Mars-500 was an international multi-part isolation experiment simulating a manned flight to Mars. The experiment's facility was located at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) in Moscow, Russia. A total of 640 experiment days were scheduled between 2007 and 2011, divided into three stages. During each stage, the crew of volunteers lived and worked in a mockup spacecraft. Communication with the outside world was limited, and was conducted with a realistic time delay of up to 25 minutes, to simulate the real-life communications lag between Mars and Earth. Similarly, a realistically limited supply of on-board consumables was provided for the volunteers. Although some conditions, such as weightlessness and cosmic radiation, could not be simulated, the experiment was intended to yield valuable psychological and medical data on the effects of long-term isolation. The experiment also permitted the study of the technical challenges of long-distance spaceflight, such as communications lag and resource rationing.

The 520-day final stage of the experiment, which was intended to simulate a full-length manned mission, ended on 4 November 2011. This stage was conducted by a six-man international crew, consisting of three Russians, a Frenchman, an Italian and a Chinese citizen. The stage included a simulation of a manned Mars landing, with three simulated Mars-walks carried out on 14, 18 and 22 February 2011. The experiment ended with all the participants reportedly in optimal physical and psychological shape.