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February 20, 2011

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Simulated Mars landing

A CHINESE volunteer who is participating in a simu-lated voyage to Mars left his sealed capsule on Friday and stepped on a mock-up of the Red Planet.

Wang Yue worked with Russian volunteer Alexander Smoleevskiy on creating the mock-up and collected soil and rock samples by remotely controlling a Mars rover, said Bai Yanqiang, vice director of the China Astronaut Research and Training Center.

Wang Yue, 27, an instruc-tor at the center, was selected last year as one of six crew members for the Mars-500 international experiment in Moscow, which aims to test the physical and psychologi-cal strain on humans during a 500-day journey to Mars.

According to Bai, Wang was wearing a Russian-made space suit, which has automat-ic pressure and air circulation systems.

Wang wore the suit during extra-vehicular activities for the Mars simulation. Wang was in fine health before he left his capsule, officials said.

After more than 260 days of a simulated flight in locked capsules, two crew mem-bers, Russian physiologist Smoleevskiy and Italian en-gineer Diego Urbina, landed on the mock-up on February 14.

The two volunteers planted the flags of Russia, the Euro-pean Space Agency and China before taking soil samples.
Volunteers will perform the third mock landing on Mars on Tuesday. The six crew members will complete the simulated return flight to Earth in November.

(Xinhua)



 

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