* Astronomy

Mars flight simulation experiment ends
Russian engineers broke a red wax seal and six men emerged from a metal hatch beaming and waving Tuesday after 105 days of isolation in a Soviet-era mock spacecraft testing the stresses space travellers may one day face on the journey to Mars.
Sergei Ryazansky, the captain of the six-man crew, told reporters at a Moscow research institute near the Kremlin that the most difficult thing was knowing that instead of making the 172-million mile journey they were locked in a four-piece windowless module made of metal canisters the size of railway cars.

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Crew completes 105-day simulated Mars mission 14 July
On 14 July, a crew of six will leave their Mars mission simulator and see the Sun once again. The crew, which includes a French pilot and a German engineer selected by ESA, will have completed 105 days of confinement and numerous scientific experiment runs inside the isolation facility at the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) in Moscow.
Their simulated mission will help understand the psychological and medical aspects of long-duration spaceflight.

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The Mars500 crew is now one-third of the way through their 105-day stay inside the isolation facility in Moscow. As ESA-selected crewmember Oliver Knickel reports in his latest diary entry, the past week has been dedicated to tests.

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At the end of the second week inside the special isolation facility, ESA-selected participant Cyrille Fournier describes how the Mars500 crew is managing to feel at home, decorating their sleeping quarters and eating fresh vegetables grown in the greenhouse.

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