- Mars500 crew (from left) Alexey Sitev, Yue Wang, Romain Charles, Alexandr Smoleevskiy, Diego Urbina and Sukhrob Kamolov.
- Mars isolation modules in Moscow – home for the Mars 500 project.
A major simulation of a human voyage to Mars has reached a key milestone – arrival at the red planet.
Following 244 days of “virtual” interplanetary flight, the crew of the Mars 500 project swung into orbit about the planet – to be followed by a three-person “landing” on Martian terrain on February 12.
Mars500 is a pioneering international study of the complex psychological and technical issues that must be tackled for long spaceflights.
The effort has been underway for more than eight months at the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow (IBMP), with the six-person team living in hermetically sealed modules that imitate a Mars spacecraft.
The crew consists of three Russians, two Europeans and one Chinese – a team that has been living and working in the facility like a real expedition to Mars.
Their spaceship has entered a hypothetical orbit around Mars.
In attaining that milestone, the crew opened the hatch between the mothership and the mockup of a lander that, according to script, was launched separately to Mars. In the coming days, the cargo inside the ‘lander’ will be transferred into the habitat and the lander will be prepared for ‘undocking’ and ‘landing’.
Here’s the schedule, according to the European Space Agency website on Mars 500. What’s ahead is that the crew will divide: Russian Alexandr Smoleevskiy, Italian Diego Urbina and Chinese Wang Yue will enter the lander.
The rest of the expedition, Romain Charles from France and Sukhrob Kamolov and Alexey Sitev from Russia ‘remain in orbit’.
The first of three sorties by members of the landing party onto the simulated martian surface is slated for February 14. Those walks on Mars will be housed within a large hall alongside the Mars500 modules.
With Mars exploration completed, and the landing crew reunites with the other Mars 500 members in Mars orbit, all face another long interplanetary cruise before arriving “back on Earth’ in early November 2011.
Mars500 is being conducted by Russia’s IBMP, with extensive participation by the European Space Agency (ESA) as part of its European Program for Life and Physical Sciences to prepare for future human missions to the Moon and Mars.
To follow the Mars 500 project, go to:
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars500/index.html#a
By Leonard David