The simulated mission to Mars will soon end and the six volunteer astronauts are set to "return" home after a mock 520-day journey to the Red Planet.

The Mars500 project, conducted by ESA and Russia's Institute of Biomedical Problems, aimed to simulate a complete manned mission to Mars, including the physical and psychological challenges that astronauts face, from beginning to end.

"Our international crew went through the Mars500 mission successfully and we're happy and proud to answer positively to the question asked one year and a half ago: 'Is Man able to endure, physiologically and psychologically, the confinement of a trip to Mars?

"Yes, we're ready to go!" said French engineer Romain Charles, one of the participants of the Mars500 project.

Researchers hope to use the data collected during the mock expedition, which reportedly cost $15 million, to better under the challenges that astronauts will face on real space missions.

"The length of Mars500 is unique - there has never been such a long isolation before, so that gives you unique data," said European astronaut Christer Fuglesang, who heads the science and application division at the Directorate of Human Spaceflight and Operations at the European Space Agency (ESA).

The experiment was conducted over a 17-month simulation period where the crewmembers performed experiments and even conducted mock "Mars walks" on the surface of the fake Red Planet. Data from brain and body scans throughout the mission of the participants were also monitored.

For a more realistic simulation, the crew experienced delayed communication with mission controllers at certain points during the journey, much like astronauts would encounter on a real flight to Mars.

"The high fidelity of the simulation has been an important factor in the success of the experiment," Patrik Sundblad, a human life sciences specialist at ESA, adding that Simulating a real mission to Mars as closely as is possible on Earth has been very important for the crew.

The Mars500 crew is made up of Charles, Italian engineer Diego Urbina, Russian physiologist Alexandr Smoleevski, Russian surgeon Sukhrob Kamolov, Russian engineer Alexey Sitev and Chinese astronaut trainer Wang Yue. Upon their ‘return' they will remain in medical quarantine for at least three days to undergo additional analysis.

"It will take about a year before scientists really get control of the data and get conclusions," Fuglesang said.

"At that point, we intend to have a meeting to present the data. We definitely need to see how to continue and are already asking about future plans."

"We don't have a clear plan right now of what will be the next step of how to build upon this, but it's something to discuss when we get more results. We need to see what questions come up from these results and what investigations we should do now."

The spacecraft, which is really an isolation facility housed at the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems in Moscow, will be opened on Nov. 4 for the first time since the mission started on June 2010.