Experiment to help with goal of manned deep-space exploration

China started a yearlong experiment on Wednesday using an airtight advanced lifesupport system to house eight volunteers as a way to help with the nation’s goal of long-term manned deep-space exploration, the project’s operator said.

The Lunar Palace 365 experiment was launched at the Lunar Palace 1 bioregenerative life-support laboratory in Beihang University in Beijing.

The eight volunteers, all postgraduate students at the university, are divided into two teams of four and will undertake the experiment in three shifts — one team entered the lab on Wednesday morning and will stay for 60 days before the second team takes over. They will live in the lab for 200 days before the first team will complete the remaining 105 days, the university said.

Lunar Palace 1 is capable of providing a habitable environment similar to Earth’s biosphere and can support four people. It was designed to test and verify technologies to be used on space missions of extended duration in deep space, and with multiple crews.

The 500-cubic-meter lab is sealed from the outside. It consists of three cabins with a total area of 160 square meters — one for volunteers to live in and control the facility and the other two to simulate cultivating plants on the moon, the university said.

During the experiment, volunteers will not leave the lab during their shifts unless they encounter emergencies.

They will plant several kinds of grains, such as wheat and corn, as well as many types of vegetables, such as carrots, tomatoes, mushrooms