Total isolation for Mars500 The Mars500 crew will soon mark a
full year in isolation, but they have never been so cut off
during their mission as they were for a week in April: they were
living and working under a total communications blackout. “What
if we came back online and there was no one outside?” This was
one of the first tweets from Diego Urbina, ESA's Mars500
crewmember after the blackout, just before wondering how it
would feel to be in total isolation for 500 days. “I wouldn’t
advise it!” This kind of situation is an important part of the
Mars500 experiment, because the crew of a real mission to Mars
will find themselves in similar circumstances. Before this, the
worst situation encountered during Mars500 was a simulated power
failure. But, unlike then, the crew knew in advance what was
coming – that all communications would be lost. High autonomy
needed Blackout periods are common in planetary missions,
because the Sun sometimes lies exactly between Earth and the
spacecraft. These ‘oppositions’ ar