MARS-500

The Mars-500 mission was a psychosocial isolation experiment conducted between 2007 and 2011 by Russia, the European Union and China, in preparation for a manned spaceflight to the planet Mars. The experiment's facility was located at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) in Moscow, Russia.

Between 2007 and 2011, three different crews of volunteers lived and worked in a mock-up spacecraft. The final stage of the experiment, which was intended to simulate a 520-day manned mission, was conducted by a crew consisting of three Russians (Alexey Sitev, Sukhrob Kamolov, Alexander Smoleevskij), a Frenchman (Romain Charles), an Italian (Diego Urbina) and a Chinese citizen (Yue Wang). The experiment helped plan the interplanetary mission, identifying possible problems and solutions. The mock-up facility simulated the Earth-Mars shuttle spacecraft, the ascent-descent craft, and the martian surface. Volunteer crew used in the three stages included professionals with experience in fields such as engineering, medicine, biology, and human spaceflight.

The Orbital Piloted Assembly and Experiment Complex (OPSEK) is the Russian successor to the ISS, with the primary mission of supporting deep space exploration. Opsek is being assembled whilst attached to the ISS. Rassvet, a planned Opsek module, arrived in orbit in 2010. All the main components of a Mars expedition would first dock at the station, before leaving for Mars.