MOSCOW - The crew of a simulated mission to Mars on Saturday landed on the "surface" of the Red Planet, as a part of the Mars-500 project, local media said.

"The simulated touchdown was successfully completed at noon Moscow time (1500 GMT)," said a spokesman for Russia's Institute of Biomedical Problems, which is in charge of the joint project with the European Space Agency.

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On Monday, three members of the crew, including Chinese astronaut Wang Yue, will descend onto the planet, don spacesuits and walk on its "surface," the spokesman said.

After 30 days of working on Mars, the crew will then embark on a 240-day return trip to Earth.

The six crew members have been living in the isolated "spacecraft" since June.

The spacecraft simulator was built at the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow. It includes a landing module, a research module, a residential segment, a storage area, a greenhouse, and a separate module imitating the surface of Mars.