Press releases

6 Sep 2023

Belarus’ Olga Mastitskaya joins Moon flight imitation experiment

MINSK, 6 September (BelTA) – The Belarusian woman Olga Mastitskaya has become a participant of the isolation experiment, which tries to imitate a space flight to the Moon, BelTA learned from the Medical and Biological Problems Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The main crew and the backup crew include eight people. In addition to six Russians (Aleksandr Borisov, Yuri Chebotarev, Kseniya Orlova, Kseniya Shishenina, Anzhelika Parfenova, and Artyom Voronkov) the list includes Belarusian Olga Mastitskaya and Egyptian Mohammed Essam Sayed Abdelaal.

BelTA reported earlier that Olga Mastitskaya, a junior research scientist from the Institute of Physical Organic Chemistry of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (NASB), was one of the six candidates vying for the title of Belarus’ first cosmonaut since the country became independent. Marina Vasilevskaya, a flight attendant of the Belarusian flag carrier Belavia, was selected for the main crew for a flight to the International Space Station (ISS). Anastasiya Lenkova, a pediatric surgeon from the National Center for Pediatric Surgery, is her backup.

As for the Moon flight experiment, the candidates are already going through initial training and are participating in collecting background data according to a research program. Before the actual experiment begins, work is in progress to test engineering and technical systems, which allow verifying the readiness of the medical and technical complex, carrying out experimental operations, and testing special research equipment. It will also allow determining locations for placing scientific research equipment and service equipment and partially training the personnel. During the initial training stage the crew will get familiar with the experimental complex and various systems, including control modules and life support modules.

The massive international isolation project Scientific International Research in Unique Terrestrial Station (SIRIUS) is taking place at premises of the Medical and Biological Problems Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The SIRIUS project provides for conducting a series of isolation experiments designed to imitate space flights. The key purpose of the SIRIUS 23 experiment is to study the mechanisms of adaptation of human body to one-year-long isolation in a hermetically sealed facility with artificial environment, which imitates a manned space flight. It will also allow working out and testing various solutions for preventing the negative influence of a complex of isolation factors.

The National Academy of Sciences of Belarus joined the SIRIUS project in late 2018. The fact that Minsk hosted the 31st planetary congress of the Association of Space Explorers (ASE Planetary Congress) contributed to it. The National Academy of Sciences of Belarus and the Medical and Biological Problems Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences signed an agreement on cooperation within the framework of the SIRIUS experiment.