Speaker
Description
The tasks of the Moon manned exploration, which are now a priority for all leading global space agencies, are ambitious and difficult to implement, so they require serious preparation and testing on Earth.
The Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) also joined the "lunar race". Thus, in 2015, the "Luna-2015" experiment was conducted on the basis of the unique Ground Experimental Facility (NEK) of the Institute, during which a comprehensive assessment of the psychophysiological status of the female crew within an 8-day simulation of the lunar expedition was conducted for the first time.
In 2016, IBMP and the Human Research Program NASA came to an agreement to conduct a series of long-term isolations of varying duration to test the elements of future lunar missions and innovative technical and technological solutions to maintain human health and performance in simulated long-term space flight conditions. And in 2017, the SIRIUS project was launched, which was held in four stages (17-day isolation - 2017, 4-month - 2019, 8-month - 2021-2022, and 1-year - 2023-2024), during which the conditions of a space flight to the Moon, work in lunar orbit and on the lunar surface were simulated. Research teams from 19 countries took part in the project with the support of leading space agencies (NASA, ESA, DLR, CNES) and space industry organizations. For the successful implementation of the project, the NEK, in which previously (2011-2012) a unique experiment to simulate a manned Martian expedition (MARS-500) was conducted, has been crucially reconstructed for new tasks.
In 2020 and 2021, IBMP conducted two stages of the "Arfa" (“Harp”) project with the participation of male volunteers to study the effect of a hypomagnetic environment on the cognitive, operator and vital functions of astronauts associated with the exploration of near and deep space objects, including lunar missions. To conduct the experiment, an “Arfa” unique facility was used, the characteristics of which allow the creation and maintenance of magnetic field intensity that is many times weaker than those we are accustomed to on Earth.
In 2021, the Institute conducted a two-week isolation experiment called "Eskiz" (“Sketch”), simulating an expedition flight of a small spacecraft to the Moon. Six volunteers took part in the experiment, four men and two women. In addition to the "flight to the Moon and return to Earth", the experiment program included landing on the lunar surface and conducting extravehicular activities using virtual reality tools.
The results of complex studies conducted in the Institute's analog projects can help answer to a number of fundamentally important questions for planning psychological, physiological, medical and ergonomic aspects of lunar and interplanetary missions and can be used in developing methods and countermeasures to the negative impact of long-term space flight factors on human body. Analog projects for simulating lunar missions can also become an effective platform for implementing international cooperation, which is a necessary condition for the success of future space flights into deep space.