Foton
Unmanned recoverable capsules of the Foton type were introduced in 1985 by the Soviet Union. The design was based on the famous Vostok spacecraft, which carried Yuri Gagarin as the first man into space in 1961. Foton was envisaged as a microgravity platform for physics and materials science to complement the very similar Bion capsules that were aimed at life science studies. However, in later years an increasing number of biology and non-microgravity experiments were transferred to Foton, while the Bion programme was discontinued. Whereas Foton-1 through -4 had been pure Soviet missions, from Foton-5 onwards equipment from Western Europe was added to the payload. The participation of ESA began in 1991 with a single protein crystallization experiment on Foton-7, followed in 1992 by the qualification flight of Biopan on Foton-8. This was the upbeat for a series of significant ESA contributions on Foton-9, -10, -11 and -12. Nowadays, the major part of the Foton payload is provided by ESA, turning this programme into a true international enterprise.
After Foton-12 an upgrade of the generic Foton spacecraft was introduced, called Foton-M, capable of carrying a heavier payload with higher power consumption. The maiden flight, Foton-M1 in 2002, ended in a disaster when the Soyuz launcher rocket crashed and exploded shortly after lift-off due to a malfunction of a booster engine. A new attempt with a largely rebuilt ESA payload will be made in June 2005 on Foton-M2. In parallel, a brand new ESA payload is currently being prepared for Foton-M3, slated for launch in the autumn of 2006.
Terminology
Foton is the direct transliteration (i.e. the conversion from cyrillic into latin letters of the spelling) of the Russian word "FOTOH". In western publications the spacecraft is sometimes referred to as Photon, which is the translation (i.e. the conversion of the meaning of the word from Russian into English) of the word "FOTOH". Traditionally, the Russian names for space vehicles are transliterated, not translated. That is why we call Yury Gagarin's capsule Vostok instead of East, and speak about the Soyuz rocket rather than the Union rocket. Therefore, Foton is better than Photon.
Another point of confusion concerns the serialling of the Foton missions. In several authoritative western publications the Foton-10 mission is referred to as Foton-7, Foton-11 as Foton-8, Foton-12 as Foton-9. The reasoning is that in the Soviet days, the existence and the name of the Foton spacecraft was only revealed during its fourth flight. Therefore, some western sources insist that the true serial number of Foton-4 shall be Foton-1 and that the official Russian numbering (which is also used by ESA) is incorrect. Fortunately, this persisting conflict was resolved with the introduction of the Foton-M spacecraft in 2002, when the counting from 1 was resumed (by everybody this time!).
Foton Flight History
|
|
Launch Date |
Flight Duration |
ESA Payload |
Launch Site |
| Foton-1 | 16 April 1985 |
12.6 |
Plesetsk | |
| Foton-2 | 21 May 1986 |
13.6 |
Plesetsk | |
| Foton-3 | 24 April 1987 |
13.6 |
Plesetsk | |
| Foton-4 | 14 April 1988 |
13.6 |
Plesetsk | |
| Foton-5 | 26 April 1989 |
14.6 |
Plesetsk | |
| Foton-6 | 11 April 1990 |
15.6 |
Plesetsk | |
| Foton-7 | 4 October 1991 |
15.6 |
x |
Plesetsk |
| Foton-8 | 8 October 1992 |
15.6 |
x |
Plesetsk |
| Foton-9 | 14 June 1994 |
17.6 |
x |
Plesetsk |
| Foton-10 | 16 February 1995 |
14.6 |
x |
Plesetsk |
| Foton-11 | 9 October 1997 |
13.6 |
x |
Plesetsk |
| Foton-12 | 9 September 1999 |
14.6 |
x |
Plesetsk |
| Foton-M1 | 15 October 2002 |
launch failure |
x |
Plesetsk |
| Planned: | ||||
| Foton-M2 | 31 May 2005 |
16.0 |
x |
Baikonur |
| Foton-M3 | Autumn 2006 |
13.0 |
x |
Baikonur |