Foton-M No.2

Foton-M No.2 was an unmanned Foton-M spacecraft which carried a European payload for the European Space Agency (ESA). It was placed into orbit by a Russian Soyuz-U rocket launched at 12:00 UTC on 20 June 2005 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan by the Russian Space Agency (RKA). The Foton-M No.2 mission was a replacement for the failed Foton-M No.1 mission, which was lost in a launch failure on 15 October 2002.

Foton-M No.2

Mission type	Microgravity research
Operator	Roskosmos ESA
COSPAR ID	2005-020A
SATCAT no.	28686
Mission duration	16 days
Spacecraft properties
Spacecraft type	Foton-M
Launch mass	600 kilograms (1,300 lb)
Payload mass	385 kilograms (849 lb)
Start of mission
Launch date	31 May 2004, 12:00:00 (2004-05-31UTC12Z) UTC
Rocket	Soyuz-U
Launch site	Baikonur 1/5
End of mission
Landing date	16 June 2004 (2004-06-17)
Orbital parameters
Reference system	Geocentric
Regime	Low Earth
Eccentricity	0.00308
Perigee altitude	261 kilometres (162 mi)
Apogee altitude	302 kilometres (188 mi)
Inclination	63º
Period	93 minutes

The 600-kilogram (1,300 lb) payload carried by the spacecraft included 385 kilograms (849 lb) of experiments; consisting of 39 experiments in fluid physics, biology, material science, meteoritics, radiation dosimetry and exobiology (BIOPAN-5). Some of the experiments were designed by the ESA's student programme.

One notable experiment tested the ability of lichen to survive in space. It was successful, as the lichen survived over 14 days of exposure to space.

External links

• ESA
• Russian Space Agency Archived 2008-03-28 at the Wayback Machine in Russian
• ESA: Lichen survives in Space
• Soyuz space mission launched carrying 39 experiments