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. SEE ALSO: Chinese spacecraft returns after flying around the moon The students will live in the locked bunker named the Lunar Palace, which measures 160 square meters (1,720 square foot), and is meant to simulate living conditions in a space-based laboratory. The students will live solely on the resources in the bunker, getting oxygen from plants and recycling urine to produce drinking water. "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." Image: AFP/Getty Images"We did this experiment with animals...we want to see how much impact it will have on people," Liu added. For now, the Beijing students appeared upbeat about the project. "I'll get so much out of this," Liu Guanghui, a PhD student said. "It's truly a different life experience." Image: AFP/Getty ImagesThe station is part of China's bid to cement its position as a space-faring nation. 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. The nation also hopes to send people to the moon by 2036.  WATCH: China's big, beautiful, green 'vertical forests' will suck up toxic smog