Russia to Conduct Series of Simulated Flights to Moon, Mars in 2016-2020

Russia will conduct a series of international experiments with simulated flights to the Moon, Mars and other planets between 2016 and 2020, the first deputy head of the Institute of Biomedical Problems told RIA Novosti on Thursday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Oleg Orlov said that the new experiments would include a mixture of sexes for the crews, as opposed to the previous Mars-500 and Luna-2015 simulations.

“After the Luna-2015 program with a crew of six female volunteers ends in 2015, we plan to begin a whole series of projects on simulated space flights between 14 days and 12 months with volunteers from Russia, the United States, Europe, and Japan,” Oleg Orlov said.

According to the institute’s plans, two 14-day experiments will be conducted in 2016-2017, as well as a 4-month simulated flight in 2017. An 8-month experiment will be held in 2018, and in 2019-2020, there will be a 12-month experimental simulated flight.

“The IBMP’s Earth module that was used earlier in the Mars-500 project will be reequipped with a new block of virtual reality with more capabilities. Moreover, a separate segment in the module will be designated for the creation of a housing with a lowered magnetic field that is particularly important for simulating the conditions of space flights,” Orlov said.