Flight to Red planet 520 days and nights long

The scientific experiment 'Mars-500' simulating a flight to the Red planet will begin at the end of March 2010.

Inside the compartment of the train to Mars.(Photo: BBC).

According to a report from the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, within the framework of the experiment, six volunteers came from Russia, Europe and possibly from China.

Scientists will spend 520 days and nights completely isolated from the outside world and perform the function of a crew on the spacecraft.

They will live in an experimental module that simulates a spacecraft flying to Mars, installed in the premises of the Moscow Research Institute.

Scientists also created a module that simulates the outer surface of Mars, the 'landing place' of two astronauts.

The experiment consisted of three stages: a 240-day (virtual) night flight from Earth to Mars, 30 days on the Red Planet and a 240-day-night flight back to Earth.

At the end of 2008, scientists conducted a 14-day and night-time technical experiment, and in 2009, a preliminary experiment of a flight simulating 105 days and nights was conducted.