A POSSIBLE future manned mission to Mars moved a step closer yesterday with an unusual experiment at a Moscow scientific institute.
The experiment, entitled Mars500, is taking place in a capsule at Moscow’s Institute of Medical and Biological Problems and is an attempt to recreate the physical and psychological conditions of a 250-day trip to the red planet, a month spent on the surface and the trip home.
Project leaders will carry out a number of experiments on how the experience affects the crew, and are particularly interested in how they cope with the isolating conditions of the mission.
Half of the team of six are expected to simulate walking on Mars. While participants can communicate with the outside world via e-mail, project conditions dictate that this will be with a 40-minute delay.
Everything that the crew will need during the simulated mission has already been loaded on board, with project co-ordinators stressing that opening the shuttle to take on new supplies is not an option.
The craft itself is separated into five modules: a medical area, living quarters, landing section, storage area and surface part, which will simulate the experience of walking on the planet.
Project leaders selected the crew members, who include three Russians, a Frenchman, a Chinese man and an Italian, from a pool of 11 applicants. each crew member is expected to receive approximately $100,000 for taking part. The crew ranges in age from 26 to 38.
The exploration of Mars has risen up the agenda of international space programmes. US president Barack Obama announced this year that the United States would no longer fund a lunar programme.
The Russian government has not rejected missions to the moon, however, and is continuing to invest heavily in its space programme, despite the economic crisis.
The federal space agency Roscosmos announced this week that it would test-launch new spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in 2015. In April this year, the Kazakh parliament finally ratified a 2004 agreement to extend Russia’s use of Baikonur, the main launch facility in the former Soviet Union.
Moscow is also investing in facilities on Russian territory. The RIA Novosti news agency reported that it would spend an estimated $13.5 billion on constructing a new space centre in the Amur region, in the far east of Russia. Set to give Russia independence from the Kazakhstan base, the first launch is scheduled for 2015 and the first piloted missions are expected to take off in 2018. Russia also continues to use facilities at the Plesetsk centre in northwest Russia.