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MOSCOW, MAY 18, ARMENPRESS: A commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medical and Biological Problems has named volunteers who will take part in the Mars 500 experiment imitating a manned flight to Mars, Armenpress reports citing Itar-Tass.
“There are four Russian citizens – two doctors, Sukhrob Kamolov and Alexander Smoleyevsky, and two engineers, Alexei Sityov and Mikhail Sinelnikov, two European engineers – Romain Charles of France and Diego Urbina of Italy, and China’s Wan Yue on the crew,” experiment director Boris Morukov said on Tuesday.
“Bearing in mind the complexity of this experiment, we have decided to have a backup. His name will be announced later,” he said.
Each of the crewmembers will have his own duties, but duplication is possible in certain cases.
A Russian will be the crew commander. Another two crewmembers will become the flight engineer and the doctor. Three will be researchers. Each function must be duplicated because the experiment will be rather complicated. The three researchers will ‘land’ on the Martian surface.
English and Russian will be the working languages, but three researchers from Europe and China do not speak Russian. “A special sign language has been agreed upon for avoiding possible misunderstandings,” Morukov said.
The Energia Aerospace Corporation developed the flight plan.