On 17 July 2019, Daniil Dubar, a researcher at the Plant Biodiversity Laboratory of the Central Botanical Garden of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, took part in a briefing on the completion of the next stage of the «SIRIUS» experiment.

A four-month stage of the SIRIUS experiment was completed at the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences. During the project, an international group of participants simulated the main characteristics of a real space flight to the moon including a flight to the satellite; a flight searching for a landing place; landing of four crew members for lunar surface operations; stay in the Moon’s orbit and remote control of the lunar rover delivered to the satellite; return to Earth.

Crew commander Evgeny Tarelkin, flight engineer Daria Zhidova, test researchers Allen Mirkadyrov (USA), Anastasia Stepanova, Reinhold Povilaitis (USA) and crew doctor Stephania Fedeye left the ground complex imitating the spacecraft in which they were isolated from the outside world from 19 March.

The scientific program of the project phase consisted of 79 experiments, including a research program to study the effect of isolation in a confined space on human psychology and physiology and relationships in an opposite-gender crew. “This experiment is intended to be one of the pillars of the organization of long flights. The current experiment will allow us to prepare systematically future missions to the moon and minimize risks," Sergey Savelyev, Deputy Director General for International Cooperation of Roscosmos, said.

The SIRIUS, International Scientific Research in Unique Terrestrial Station, is a series of experiments implementing by the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (USA) in cooperation with partner organizations from Germany, Italy, Japan and other countries. The SIRIUS project is supposed to last five years with a possible continuation. Scientific experiments are considered as a stage of preparing future long-term human space flights.

Daniil Dubar is a member of the backup crew of the project. It is planned for him to participate in the next stages of the project: an eight-month experiment in 2020 and a twelve-month experiment.

The National Academy of Sciences of Belarus is one of the main scientific partners of the project.