IS there life on Mars? It's a question that has plagued us for centuries. Now, however, thanks to a mission due to finish today – that simulates the human experience of surviving on the Red Planet – the dream of sending astronauts to Mars has moved one step closer.

As part of the HI-SEAS Nasa-funded simulated mission to Mars six volunteer scientists have spent the last year in a specially-constructed dome on a Hawaiian volcano to help explore the "human factors" identified as risks to success of a real mission. Would we go mad during the journey, or on the planet? Might loneliness affect us so much we couldn't carry out the mission? Would falling in love be dangerous? Or falling out of love?

Food in the 93 square metre dome has been dried or canned, and communication with "Mission Control" is delayed by 20 minutes, the length it would take to relay messages from Mars, in order to more closely ape the psychological conditions of living and working millions of miles from home.

At 8,200 feet above sea level, the landscape around Mauna Loa mimics Martian soil and scientists have only been allowed outside to explore it as part of "simulated spacewalks" wearing spacesuits and helmets.

The aim of the mission, the longest of a series headed by the University of Hawaii at M?noa, is to study the human and psychological factors essential to the success of any human exploration of Mars, which would last about three years.

Data about how the crew bonded, interacted and worked together will be analysed and help inform a planned future mission, due to start in January 2017, looking at which character traits best complement each other in the perfect space team.

Kim Binsted, principal investigator of the study, told the Sunday Herald that the year-long project had produced "a huge volume of data" to be analysed in coming months. Yesterday she was preparing a feast of fresh fruit to reward volunteers for their 365-day commitment to science.

"Nasa funded this project because we need to look at how crew cohesion can effect performance," she explained. "Astronauts tend to be very stoic people and if you ask them how they are doing, they will say, "fine". So we have to find other ways of detecting issues.

"For example, volunteers all wear sociometric badges, like in Star Trek, and they will record things like voice volume and distance. If we detect raised voices, or if two badges never come close to each other, it might suggest there is a problem and we can think about ways to deal with that. Successful human interaction is just as important as having the right technology."

Last September new findings from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) provided the strongest evidence yet that liquid water still flows intermittently on present-day Mars, raising hopes about the possibility of finding microscopic life.

However scientists claim finding signs of life through robotic exploration alone is extremely challenging. Evidence of ancient Martian lifeforms are likely to have been locked away rocks for billions of years, making it difficult to detect.

"There are two alternative ways to explore Mars that will help to overcome this difficulty," said Dr Claire Cousins, of St Andrew's University's Earth and Environmental Sciences department.

"One way is to bring bits of Mars back to Earth via robotic sample-return missions, so we can study them back in laboratories on Earth. The second way is to send humans to Mars, so they can use more complicated equipment on Mars itself, as well as benefit from the far better decision-making capability of people vs robotic rovers."

Cousins, who is also involved in Nasa funded Mars research, said human exploration of the planet was expected within the next decade or so.

"Since landing on the Moon, Mars has been the next frontier in human space exploration, and we're getting closer to achieving this every day," she added.

"Missions that simulate what it would be like for a small crew of people to explore Mars help us understand not just how to carry out cool science, but importantly how people can cope under the psychological pressure of a very confined environment, with just the same few people to interact with."

The Hawaiian mission is just one of a series of projects working to solve the problems of how to best support healthy human interaction in space. Last year, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly spent a year aboard the International Space Station with Russian Federal Space Agency cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, which tested a range of human factors including physical, behavioural and psychological ones.

Films from Stanley Kubrick's cult classic 2001: A Space Odyssey to The Right Stuff, based on Tom Wolfe's bestseller, have dealt with the horror of psychological breakdown in space.

While in real life mental health has been identified as one of the major limiting factors for astronauts. Many report frequent hallucinations - while some are seen as visual disturbances others have been associated with the breakdown of crew coherence and space mission stress.

In 1976, crew from the Russian Soyuz-21 mission were brought back to Earth early after they reported an acrid smell aboard the Salyut-5 space station though "interpersonal issues" and "psychological problems" later led Nasa to conclude the odour was probably a hallucination.

Meanwhile on Jupiter...

A NASA probe made history yesterday as it few closer to the planet Jupiter that any spacecraft has previously done during the main phase of its mission.

Juno passed just 2,500 miles above the cloud tops of the gas giant on Saturday, travelling at a speed of 130,000mph at 12:51 GMT and recorded the encounter on its camera, one of nine data gathering instruments onboard. Nasa hopes to release some detailed colour images, including the first of the planet's poles in the next few days.

A wealth of data about Jupiter's composition, gravity, magnetic field, and the source of its raging 384mph winds will also be analysed. A British team from the University of Leicester is playing a key part in the mission, focusing on Jupiter's magnetic field and dynamic atmosphere.

Principal investigator Dr Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, US, said: "This is our first opportunity to really take a close-up look at the king of our solar system and begin to figure out how he works."

In total, 35 more close fly-bys are planned during Juno's primary mission, scheduled to end in February 2018. At the end of its 20-month mission, Juno will make a one-way plunge into the planet's thick atmosphere.

Juno was launched into space by an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida five years ago and has since travelled 1.8 billion miles.