For the better part of the next year, these students will have a taste of the rigours of being onboard a space station.
On Sunday, four students from the Beijing's University of Aeronautics and Astronautics embarked on a 200-day stay in a space station simulator.
"We've designed it so the oxygen [produced by plants at the station] is exactly enough to satisfy the humans, the animals, and the organisms that break down the waste materials," Liu Hong, the project's principal architect told Reuters.
The team will also have to deal with the mental challenge of being locked out from the rest of the world.
"They can become a bit depressed," said Liu. "If you spend a long time in this type of environment it can create some psychological problems."
The station is part of China's project to become a major player in the space race, which includes plans to send humans to the moon by 2036.
China announced last year that it planned to be the first country to land a probe on the far side of the moon, adding that it wanted to launch its first Mars probe by 2020.
On Sunday, four students from the Beijing's University of Aeronautics and Astronautics embarked on a 200-day stay in a space station simulator.
"We've designed it so the oxygen [produced by plants at the station] is exactly enough to satisfy the humans, the animals, and the organisms that break down the waste materials," Liu Hong, the project's principal architect told Reuters.
The team will also have to deal with the mental challenge of being locked out from the rest of the world.
"They can become a bit depressed," said Liu. "If you spend a long time in this type of environment it can create some psychological problems."
The station is part of China's project to become a major player in the space race, which includes plans to send humans to the moon by 2036.
China announced last year that it planned to be the first country to land a probe on the far side of the moon, adding that it wanted to launch its first Mars probe by 2020.