What is SIRIUS-2023 project doing and how did Belarusians manage to visit the Moon thanks to it?

Flights to Mars or the Moon as an intermediate station are still just dreams, but the SIRIUS-2023 project is bringing these dreams closer to reality.

The experiments were divided into four stages. The first isolation lasted a little over two weeks, then two months, eight months and a whole year. Of course, today the isolation conditions are much more comfortable than in 1967. Now there is not one, but five fairly spacious modules. Each team member has their own cabin, kitchen and recreation room, but this does not make the experiment any easier. Not everyone is capable of living in an isolated space for a whole year, so the selection is even more serious than for astronauts.

Oleg Voloshin, cyberneticist, head of the press service of the Institute of Medical Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences:

"We have several selection phases. This is an announcement about recruiting test subjects. At the questionnaire stages, a large number of not very adequate people or simply unsuitable ones are eliminated. The second part consists of a conversation with psychologists, at this stage, some number are also eliminated. Then the most serious selection takes place - medical. We try to select the healthiest people possible, because after all, the experiment is being conducted in a confined space. If a person has a chronic disease, then it will only contribute to the interruption of the experiment."

Senior researcher of the laboratory of physiology of the immune system, assistant to the executive director of the SIRIUS-2023 project, curator of the SIRIUS crew said that in addition to the above, leadership qualities, intelligence, and stress resistance are also necessary. People should be inclined to teamwork, extroverted.

Olga Mastitskaya began dreaming about space in 2022. She took part in the selection for the first female cosmonaut in the history of sovereign Belarus to fly into space. She was among the top six, visited Star City, where the final tests took place, but did not make it into either the main or backup crews. Therefore, when she was invited to take part in the SIRIUS-2023 experiment, she agreed without hesitation.

Olga Mastitskaya:

"Of course, the experience was amazing and colossal. Throughout the experiment and even at the end, I did not regret for a second that I agreed to take part in an international experiment. Of course, representing my country was a great honor for me".

Olga Mastitskaya is a chemical engineer and technologist by education. She works at the Institute of Physical and Organic Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of Belarus. In the project, she was responsible for the greenhouse: growing microgreens and vegetables.

Olga Mastitskaya: "For a whole year, the crew operated according to the so-called cyclogram. This is when your day is scheduled from 7:00 to 23:00. Also, in the project, everyone is assigned their own roles - ship commander, flight engineer, doctor, researchers. And everyone has their own tasks".

Since the experiment is connected with a flight to the Moon, it was also necessary to practice exiting and staying on the lunar surface.

A year-long experiment on simulating a flight to the Moon, in which six testers from Belarus and Russia participated, has ended in Moscow.