Launch test flight to Mars

The 520 day trial simulated the flight to Mars, with the participation of a 6-person volunteer group (including 3 Russians, a Frenchman, a Belgian and a Chinese), was kicked off the day. 4/5.

This trial is part of an international project "Mars-500" (Mars-500), jointly implemented by the Russian Academy of Science and Space Agency, to gain experience to prepare for Actual flight takes people to Mars.

For nearly a year and a half, the volunteer group will live and work in a special 180-square-meter technical-medical complex, modeled as a closed spacecraft, completely isolated from the outside. This complex is located in the Russian suburbs of Moscow.

In this complex there are conditions similar to those when humans fly to Mars (except for non-weight and radioactive conditions).

This 520 day and night trial is calculated based on the assumption of the time to fully perform a flight to Mars, of which 250 days to fly to Mars, 30 working days on the surface of the Red planet and 240 days of flight to Earth.

Illustration.

The goal of the experiment is to study the physiological and physiological adaptive characteristics of the crew in a separate working and living condition with the Earth, studying the interoperability between the crew and the Control Center. test in other communication conditions (email and radio communication), check the means of ensuring living activities and scientific equipment.

The 520 day and night trial is the final stage of the "Mars-500" project. Last year, scientists completed a trip to simulate 105 days and nights on Mars with three stages: flying around orbit near Earth, flying to Mars and flying on Mars orbit.

The test participants went through all the challenges of a space flight and overcome many unusual situations like broken machines, broken ships, broken training equipment .

Especially difficult is the final stage, when the crew loses contact with the Control Center. At one point, the crew was only exposed to the Earth via email and only received the reply as soon as 40 minutes (by the time the signal reached Earth and returned).