MOSCOW, November 14 Participants in a year-long experiment to simulate a flight to the Moon during the “landings” will learning to walk and run in conditions of lunar gravity, as well as to control the lunar rover, said crew doctor Ksenia Orlova.
The SIRIUS-23 experiment on a year-long isolation of the crew to simulate a flight to the Moon began today at the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IMBP) of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. The crew consists of two men and four women. In four days they will “fly” to the Moon and dock with the lunar orbital station, and will also make five “landings” on the surface of the Earth’s natural satellite.
“We will directly reproduce the hanging technique, when we will simulate movements on the Moon in special equipment. We must adapt to walking on it, learn to run and also control the lunar rover, which will also be used in this mission using VR technologies,” said she is at a press conference before the start of the experiment.
Orlova called the “landings” on the Moon the most interesting part of the project. Work on the lunar surface will be simulated using virtual reality glasses.
«We will have certain tasks, for example, to collect lunar soil, that is, to carry out manipulations that will be similar to what we actually do,» she added.
Previously, within the framework of the SIRIUS project, also on the basis of IBMP, experiments were carried out lasting 17 days — in November 2017, four months — in 2018-2019, eight months in 2021-2022. In addition to Russian participants, the crews included researchers from the USA, Germany and the UAE.