The end of the flight to Mars

Exactly speaking this is just a hypothetical flight. The Russian-European crew of six volunteers spent 105 days and nights in the Mars model of the international project "Mars-500" ( Mars-500 ).

At 14:00 on July 14 (Moscow time), four Russians, a Frenchman and a German left the special medical-engineering complex simulated as a spaceship, where they lived for three and a half months. completely isolated from the outside. In this complex there are conditions similar to those when humans fly to Mars (except for non-weight and radioactive conditions).

'Astronaut' team(Photo: ksjtracker.mit.edu)

The test participants experienced all the challenges of a space flight and overcome many unusual situations such as broken machines, broken ships, broken training equipment . Especially difficult the last paragraph when the crew loses contact with the flight control center.

This experiment aims to study the physiological psychophysiological characteristics of the crew in isolated and working conditions with the Earth, studying the interoperability between the crew and the test control center in other communication conditions (email and radio communication), check the means of ensuring living activities and scientific equipment.

During the implementation of a hypothetical test flight to Mars, six volunteer astronauts conducted more than 70 scientific studies.

(Photo: Timesonline.co.uk)