MOSCOW, October 16. /TASS/. The flight certification board of the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) has approved the main and backup crews for the joint 17-day simulation project carried out by RAS and NASA. The mission is set for November 7, the IBMP institute, that will host the project, reported on Monday.

"The IBMP has held a meeting of the flight certification board that examines volunteer researchers for participation in the 17-day SIRIUS (Scientific International Research In Unique terrestrial Station) simulation project. Expert assessments were based on general and medical data of preliminary candidates selection. According to the board’s report, all volunteers were admitted to the experiment. The mission will start on November 7, 2017," the press service said.

The IBMP credentials committee approved the main crew for the SIRIUS-17 isolation mission as follows: Anna Kikina (Roscosmos cosmonaut team), IBMP experts Yelena Luchitskaya (participant of the Moon-2015 mission), Natalya Lysova, Ilya Rukavishnikov, head of the flight test department of the Energiya rocket and space corporation Mark Serov, as well as member of the Airbus Defence and Space group of companies Viktor Fetter (Germany). The support crew is: Oleg Ivanov (candidate for the Roscosmos cosmonaut team), Polina Kuznetsova (member of the Moon-2015 mission) and Alexander Smoleevsky (participant of the Mars-500 mission).

IBMP and NASA earlier agreed to carry out a series of simulated missions from 2017 to 2021 related to study of psychology and working capability of a person in long space flights. In 2017, a simulated mission will take two to three weeks, in 2019, eight months and in 2020-2021 a year-long simulation project will be carried out.

The IBMP experimental complex was used for the Mars-500 project from 2007 to 2011 in Moscow. In October - November 2015, an all-female simulated nine-day mission called "Moon-2015" was held in Moscow.

A few dozens of such simulated missions have been carried out in IBMP since 1967. The most famous of them are "A year in a spaceship" (1967-1968), HUBES (1994), EKOPSY (1995) and SFINCSS (2000).