Mars500 is a collaboration between the European Space Agency, Russia and China, to simulate a 500-day manned mission to Mars. The crew of six men entered their sealed facility in Moscow, Russia, in June 2010 and emerged in November 2011. Their ‘spacecraft’ is constructed from sealed containers linked together to provide 550 cubic metres of internal space. The project includes a 20-minute time delay in communications between the crew and the outside world, just like a real Mars mission would.

The crew members were Alexey Sitev, Sukhrob Kamolov and Alexandr Smoleevskiy (all Russia), Romain Charles (France), Diego Urbina (Italy/Colombia), Wang Yue (China).