Mars500 â€˜arrivesâ€™ in orbit around Mars ESA Press Release 2
February 2011 The first full-duration simulation of a manned
voyage to Mars has reached a major milestone: the
â€˜spacecraftâ€™ yesterday â€˜arrivedâ€™ at Mars after 244 days
of virtual interplanetary flight. Three crewmembers will
â€˜landâ€™ on Mars on 12 February and make three sorties onto
simulated martian terrain. Mars500, a pioneering international
study of the complex psychological and technical issues that
must be tackled for long spaceflights, has been running for more
than eight months in hermetically sealed modules imitating a
Mars spacecraft at the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP)
in Moscow. The crew of three Russians, two Europeans and one
Chinese has been living and working in the facility like a real
expedition to Mars. They are following a similar seven-day week,
with two days off duty, to the astronauts on the International
Space Station. Their work time during the â€˜flightâ€™ is filled
with maintenance jobs, experiments a