Russia kicked off one other of its Scientific International Research In Unique terrestrial Station (SIRIUS) project initiatives this week, this time a 360-day isolation of people to mimic flight conditions of a deep space journey.
The mission is referred to as SIRIUS-23. The nearly year-long stint by the six-person crew is carried out under the auspices of the legendary Institute for Bio-Medical Problems (IBMP) under the Russian Academy of Sciences. Last month, IBMP celebrated 60 years of research since its establishment to research issues related to long-term human space exploration.
SIRIUS-23 is the fourth stage of earlier IBMP isolation experiments: SIRIUS-17 (17 days in 2017); SIRIUS-19 (120 days in 2019), with the stage-3 SIRIUS-23 mission going down in 2021 and lasting 240 days.
The SIRIUS-23 crew entered their home-away-from-home isolation facility on Nov. 14. This set of people will perform a lunar mission simulation that involves a flyby of the moon to pick out a landing site, multiple simulated landings of 4 crew members for surface operations, orbiting the moon, and carrying out tele-operation of a rover on the lunar surface.
Related: Mars on Earth: What months of simulated astronaut missions taught this scientist
Mixed-gender crew
Watching the event in Moscow was Anastasia Stepanova, a PhD student in space resources on the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. She is a veteran of multiple space simulation missions here on Earth.
In 2019, Stepanova participated within the four-month SIRIUS-19 lunar flight simulation experiment organized jointly by IBMP and NASA’s human research program.
“Sirius-23 is different in some ways then the previous SIRIUS-17, 19 and 21 simulations,” Stepanova told Space.com. “NASA, which was a partner for a few years, couldn’t take part in 2023. There is not any have to have English and Russian languages within the crew, since all crew members are Russian speaking, for the primary time within the history of IBMP isolation experiments.”
Stepanova also points out that within the mixed gender SIRIUS-23 crew there are more women than men.
Intra-group interaction
“The crew was excited to start out their moon journey and nervous to speak in front of the press,” Stepanova said. “One yr is a difficult duration that will probably be crammed with many biomedical experiments on board.”
As a part of the experiment, the psychophysiological features of the crew’s activities will probably be studied, Stepanova said. That appraisal includes crew response to varied kinds of technical malfunctions that may lead to an accident with serious consequences that pose a threat to life and health for crew members.
As well as, problems of intra-group interaction and leadership with different gender composition will probably be assessed, in addition to problems of long-term and regular extravehicular activity, accompanied by physical exercise and night work, Stepanova said.
NASA isolation studies
As for NASA’s non-involvement in SIRIUS-23, Anna Schneider, a public affairs specialist at NASA Johnson Space Center, told Space.com in a press release:
“NASA’s Human Research Program is participating in isolation research and other Earth-based analogs, including the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) and the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA), Antarctica, in addition to evaluating other domestic and international analogs, to make sure key research goals may be accomplished to tell future human spaceflight missions. The agency isn’t participating within the 12-month SIRIUS 23 mission.”
Meanwhile, the SIRIUS-23 crew is settling in for the long-haul:
- Yuri Sergeevich Chebotarev (Russia) – crew commander
- Anzhelika Anatolyevna Parfyonova (Russia) – flight engineer
- Ksenia Dmitrievna Orlova (Russia, resident of the state of Asgardia) – crew doctor
- Olga Sergeevna Mastitskaya (Belarus) – researcher
- Ksenia Sergeevna Shishenina (Russia) – researcher
- Rustam Nazimovich Zaripov (Russia) — researcher
Now tucked inside their sealed-off facility, the first goal of the SIRIUS-23 experiment is to review how the human body adapts to the conditions and negative effects related to isolation in a man-made habitat, in response to the IBMP.