MOSCOW, February 8. /TASS/. The beginning of the SIRIUS-21 international isolation experiment has been scheduled for November instead of June, the press office of the Institute of Biomedical Problems within the Russian Academy of Sciences announced on Monday.
"Due to the persisting COVID-19 pandemic threat, the previously agreed plan of launching the SIRIUS-21 mission in June 2021 is no longer feasible for HRP (NASA’s Human Research Program). In order to make all participants maximally safe, HRP has suggested that the beginning of the SIRIUS-21 mission be postponed to early November 2021," the press office said in a statement.
A new schedule of planning an eight-month mission will be worked out, the Institute of Biomedical Problems said. "Both sides confirmed their intentions to continue the efforts of planning the subsequent 12-month mission in order to launch it as quickly as possible after the eight-month mission is over."
The SIRIUS (Scientific International Research In Unique Terrestrial Station) international project is a series of joint isolation experiments for the duration of four, eight and 12 months within five years being carried out by Russia’s Institute of Biomedical Problems and the NASA Human Research Program.
The SIRIS isolation experiment will run in Moscow on the premises of the Institute of Biomedical Problems. During the experiment, the crew of six volunteers will be cut off from the world for eight months.
The crew will stay in the autonomous ground compound and communicate only with the experiment control center through audio systems and maintain communications with their relatives by email.
The isolation experiment will simulate a real lunar expedition: the travel to the Earth’s natural satellite and a flight around it to search for a landing place, the landing of crewmembers for operations on the surface and return to Earth.