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One of the crew of the ground flight to Mars will become Chinese.. / January 12, 2010 /

One of the participants in the experiment «Mars-500» to model flight to the Red Planet may be a citizen of China. In the near future several candidates will arrive in Russia for the survey, ITAR-TASS reported with reference to Paul Morgunova, press secretary of the Institute of Biomedical Problems, Academy of Sciences (IBMP). IBMP in charge of the experiment.

Morgunov not rule out that Russia’s specialists can take away not only the main candidate, but also his backup. Not reported, will take if the Chinese «astronaut» place of one of the Russian participants in the experiment or whether it will be allocated a separate place. Earlier it was reported that the crew will include four Russians and two Europeans. Composition of Russian participants was approved in early January.

«Flight», which will last 520 days, due to start in March 2010. Within 250 days the participants of the experiment will «fly» on Mars, the next 30 days will «surface» of the planet. Return to Earth will take another 240 days. Experimental modules required for each stage of the «flight» are in the IBMP.

Holding of this long-term experiment was preceded by a shorter 14-day and 105-day experiments. The latter was completed in July 2009. The main purpose of «Mars» — the study of psychological changes that occur with the participants during the long isolation from society.

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