19 Mar 2019 17:22

NASA, IBMP preparing for 8-month-long isolation experiment simulating flight to other planets

MOSCOW. March 19 (Interfax) - Russian experts from the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP), together with medics from NASA, have begun preparing for a long-term experiment simulating flight to other planets, Jennifer Fogarty, the chief scientists of NASA Human Research Program, said.

The eight-month-long SIRIUS-20 mission with a larger crew is already being planned, she said at a press conference dedicated to the ground experiment simulating the four-month-long flight to the Moon that began on Tuesday.

The IBMP and NASA have been working together for decades and expressed confidence that they would continue to do so, Fogarty said.

They will develop the program of long-term interplanetary flights together, she said. Their objective is to learn how people's behavior changes in the conditions of a long-term flight in a confined space and how stress levels increase when Earth disappears from a spacecraft's viewports.

The work has begun within the framework of a four-month mission so that lengthier programs can be moved onto subsequently, she said.

On Tuesday, a mixed crew began its four-month-long simulated flight to the Moon as part of the SIRIUS project.

The experiment is being conducted at the Ground Experimental Complex of the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.