The crew «flying» to the moon was delivered a psychological detective story and a mango

According to legend, a cargo ship docked to the interplanetary spacecraft as part of the SIRIUS-23 experiment on Friday evening

The crew of the SIRIUS-23 experiment, consisting of two men and four women, will not have to sleep until Saturday evening. A “transport cargo ship” “docked” to their “interplanetary space” complex on the evening of December 15th. He brought so much scientific equipment, hygiene products and psychological support that the guys would have to sort it all out all night, including the next Saturday. The MK correspondent found out the details of the event.

SIRIUS-2023 crew on vacation. Photo courtesy of IBMP RAS

Let us recall that SIRIUS-23 is the final stage of a long-term ground experiment to simulate a flight to the Moon, which began in 2017. If the previous ones lasted 17 days, 4 months, 8 months, then this one, which started a month ago, will last for a whole year.

The “flight” takes place in the ground-based experimental complex of the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences on Khoroshevskoye Shosse.

In the team that went through a special selection system — a production automation specialist, an employee of the Cosmonaut Training Center named after. Yu.A. Gagarin Yuri Chebotarev (crew commander), Khabarovsk Airlines pilot Anzhelika Parfenova, allergist Ksenia Orlova (she is also a representative of the “space” state of Asgardia), junior researcher at the Institute of Physical-Organic Chemistry of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus Olga Mastitskaya (she became the first representative of Belarus in similar experiments), junior researcher at IBMP Ksenia Shishenina and doctor from IBMP Rustam Zaripov.

The crew is at work. Photo courtesy of IBMP RAS

In an atmosphere reminiscent of a real space station, all of them will have to, first of all, get along with each other, develop immunity to possible irritating factors and perfectly carry out the assigned scientific program. In general, everything is the same as in a real interplanetary spacecraft, except perhaps without weightlessness and strong overloads.

As would be the case on a flight to the Moon, the crew members were “sent” from Earth to follow a truck with additional cargo.< /p>

As reported to MK by the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the role of this “transporter” was played by the NEK Small Landing Module.

Boxes with the necessary equipment and consumables for conducting experiments: all kinds of Petri dishes, test tubes, electrodes, small instruments and other consumables, as well as food and gifts from family and friends, the organizers of the experiment put into the “truck” module throughout the past week . Then all the parcels were disinfected, and the module was sealed on the outside — members of the “lunar” ship should not have any contact with the personnel servicing the experiment.

So, similar to the current one, the cargo ship was unloaded in the previous SIRIUS-2021 experiment. Photo courtesy of IBMP RAS

And on Friday at about 21.00 Moscow time, the crew under the leadership of Yuri Chebotarev began unloading. The testers were given two hours to unload everything brought by the “ship” and then seal it again. Afterwards, they will have to put everything on the shelves for quite some time in their living compartment. Unloading and unpacking parcels will result in 36 hours of insomnia for crew members. This is a so-called experiment, bordering on emergency situations, on sleep deprivation (reduction). Next time, “interplanetary travelers” will be able to take a nap no earlier than 20.30 on Saturday.

But then, closer to the holidays, they will be able to decorate the New Year tree sent to them with toys, decorate their cabins with stickers with holiday decor, sign cards for family and friends, print out new calendars on 2024.

The “Truck” also brought additional food sets for the “cosmonauts”, formed at their requests: canned food, dried fruits (for example, dried mango), sweets, tea, as well as dishes, clothes and cosmetics (face masks, cream), and hygiene products.

For entertainment they were sent: board games (chess, puzzles), as well as books on order, for example, psychological works by the Swedish writer Frederik Backman and Ulyana Menshikova .