“The Gruta do Natal offers, in terms of security, logistics, etc., all the conditions to finally have an analogous place (simulating the surface of the Moon) to offer real astronauts. We open the doors to the national and international community to come here and train”, said the mission commander and researcher at the Institute of Systems Engineering and Computers, Technology and Science - INESC TEC, Ana Pires, speaking to Lusa and Antena 1.

Ana Pires was speaking in the cave where seven national and foreign "astronauts" will be isolated, between November 22nd and 28th, simulating a mission to the Moon and carrying out 14 scientific experiments.

The researcher has already participated in a similar mission in the desert, but for the first time she is participating in an underground one, which she said was “much tougher”.

For Ana Pires, the mission at Gruta do Natal will be just “the first step towards fantastic things that can happen” and to establish bridges with researchers from the European Space Agency (ESA) and the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) .

“We finally have a place where researchers, future astronauts, and young people can prepare for human exploration (of the Moon) and robotic exploration,” she said.

The idea of creating a simulation mission in a cave came up four years ago, but since it was announced, at the Explorers' Summit in Angra do Heroísmo, on the island of Terceira, the team had four months to put it together.

According to Yvette Gonzalez, executive director of the mission and researcher at the University of Plymouth, in the United States, there are many similar missions in the world, but this one is carried out in a “very unusual structure, different from anywhere else”, which will function as a true “Natural laboratory".

“Living in a cave is something new. Few groups have done so. For the first time, we will give other scientists data on what it is like to live here. On the other hand, this cave will make new data available for astrobiology and geology,” she explained.