CZECH SCIENTIFIC PARTICIPATION IN THE MARS-500 PROJECT; OR HOW IT ALL STARTED

Author: PhDr. Jaroslav Sýkora, member of the International Academy of Astronautics

On 1st August 2006, I received a letter of invitation from the Mars-500 coordinator, which said:

Dear friends,
It gives me great pleasure to inform you that you may see the Announcement concerning the experiment "MARS-500" on the IBMP Site http://www.imbp.ru
I shall wait for your proposals.
wish you and all my friends good vacations.
Best regards,

Albert Nechaev
Coordinator of the Scientific Program

There followed a consideration of the possibilities for Czech participation in the experiment. In August and September 2006, a number of meetings took place, attended by numerous colleagues who had already participated in similar experiments in the past, including the Czech project ADIT-88 TO MARS, HUBES 94-95, SFINCSS 1997, and others. We discussed the possibility of new participation of experts from various fields of science and research, but also from institutions and companies that are experienced in research activities and development of methods, technologies, and instrumentation for studying the human factor, especially with the view to its impact in extreme or even critical life situations where extreme burden and massive stress are in play.

The outcome of all these negotiations was a list of possible individuals, institutions and private companies that would be invited to participate in the experiment. Those seriously interested would be invited to attend an orientation meeting, where they would receive concrete information on current and available details, on the basis of which they would be able to make a decision about their cooperation. From this stemmed our next important decision to accept the invitation of IMBP to participate in the scientific programme of the Mars-500 project. That was related mainly to considering the expert share the individuals and institutions from the Czech Republic could contribute to the creation of the scientific team, as well as the solution to the indispensable issues of financial resources, material provision and other essential elements of the project support. In relation to this, it was also necessary to consider integrating the project into the structure of an umbrella institution, which would accept the project as its own scientific task, appoint a responsible person as the “Project Investigator”, establish a working group, and guarantee the creation of the project for the necessary research activity.

The preliminary scope of the team participation was observing the crew cohesion in the course of all stages of the experiment, that is “before – during – and after” the experiment, including the induced crisis situations. Furthermore, it includes following the activities of the separated crew in the landing module for the simulated “landing” on the Mars surface during their “stay on Mars”, during their return to the “parking orbit” and their re-connection with the parked “interplanetary spaceship”. In the next stage, it was proposed to continue in observation of the activities of the reunited crew during their “return to Earth”.

It was assumed the following observation methods would be used:

• Questionnaire for continuous evaluation of communication (communication assessment system).
• Continuous observation of the crew members (video-recording, but preferably an on-line connection with the simulator cabin).
• Introduction of an assessment range (self-evaluation and evaluation of other crew members with the view to selected characteristics).

The IMBP requirement stated in paragraph 7.1, part “Proposal” made it obvious, that the organizing institution counts with the instrumentation that would be installed in the cabin throughout the experiment and that would record the data necessary for the evaluation of the observed states inside the simulator. That is, it would be an online system for continuous observation, facilitating the connection via the internet and electronic mail. This fact made us feel the need to invite experts (institutions) dealing with this issue not only in theory but also in practice. That is why we focused also on the participation of experts from this field, who were invited to join the team.

The date of the first meeting of the subjects potentially interested to cooperate on the Czech part of the Mars-500 project was set tentatively for the end of September 2006, with the view to the fact that the binding decision about the team cooperation would have to be made immediately after this meeting, because the IMBP instructions stated that the project submission deadline was 31st December 2006. And we met this deadline. After the following period of hard work, two of our colleagues left for Moscow in the last week of February 2009 to train the crew of the first part of the Mars-500 experiment. That started off the next stage of our work.

And what is the main principle behind the Czech participation in the scientific research within the Mars-500 project?

In the course of observing the crew cohesion, the Czech team follows the remotely projected data obtained from each individual through the control centre, which is processed through the original programme for SOCIOMAPPING, a unique outcome of the research work by QED GROUP a.s., gives feedback without delay to the control centre, and as necessary directly to the crew.

Also the method of the technology for bilateral sharing of the data from monitoring is unique, as well as the software, and was developed in our scientific research team.

The mission of both stages of the Mars-500 experiment, which will take 105 and then 500-700 days, is testing the possibilities of the developed operation system for its use in a real interplanetary flight. If this goal of ours is successfully fulfilled, the Czech share not only in the Mars-500 project but also, above all, in the future real cosmic flights, would be more than significant.