Foton M2 Mission
On 31 May 2005, the Foton M2 capsule, housing a payload complement of 39 experiments in physical sciences, biology, fluid physics, exobiology, materials sceince and technology, was successfully launched aboard a Soyuz-U rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and spent 15.6 days in Earth orbit.
Foton-M2 will be ESA's eleventh mission of this kind - the first of which took place seventeen years ago. The unmanned Foton capsules are based on the Russian Vostok capsule, in which Yuri Gagarin was put into orbit in 1961.
Mission Simulation Test
The Foton-M2 Mission Simulation Test is a vital last step in the preparation of the experiments before they are shipped to Samara, in Russia, next January. The sixteen physical sciences experiments that underwent testing at ESTEC during early November 2004, all require some form of control or monitoring from the ground during the mission. These tests provided a last chance to check that all systems function as expected, and that planned procedures are complete.
NEW - Two media articles on Lichens experiment.