Published: 14 September, 2007, 16:56
Edited: 14 September, 2007, 16:56
The Foton-M3 research laboratory, with a collection of insects and mammals on board, has been sent into orbit for 12 days of experiments. The satellite has launched via a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The unmanned capsule is jo
A range of experiments in chemistry, physics, biology and bio-technology will be conducted in orbit.
Scientists are hoping to learn more about the biological effects of space flight. Among the creatures being studied on the mission are mice, butterflies, lizards and cockroaches.
“The research capsule provides almost complete weightlessness. One would think this is easy to achieve. In actual fact, these conditions are hard to create – even at the ISS,” said Yury Nosenko, the deputy chief of the Russian Federal Space Agency.
Last year a competition was announced: any school could devise a real experiment to be conducted in weightless conditions. It would then be carried out during the Foton-M3 mission.
For example, butterfly cocoons will develop normally in the lab, whilst identical ones will grow aboard the Foton. When they get back the two sets will be compared.
“It is so interesting how the butterfly will grow inside the cocoon. How their sense of space will develop, what kind of wings they will grow, or if they will have any wings at all!” explained Oleg, a young scientist.
The Foton-M3 capsule carries a 400 kg European experiment payload with experiments in a range of different scientific disciplines.
The surface of the research capsule will carry rocks covered with primitive biological organisms, to see if life could have spread that way between planets.
Also travelling with the Foton-M3 will be a small satellite, YES2 (the Young Engineers' Satellite 2). Once the research capsule is in orbit, YES2 will be returned to Earth. But instead of being fired down it will be lowered on a 30-kilometre string thinner than a thread.
It will then use its connection to the mother ship to position itself correctly to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.
In the future, this may become a common way to transport objects back from orbit.
However, it's not just space technologies that benefit.
“Many experiments that deal with bone loss in microgravity and the results of that will of course on the one hand provide new information on the behaviour of bones and the skeleton system of astronauts in micro-gravity. But there is a disease which is called osteoporosis, and its effects are very similar to bone loss of astronauts during microgravity,” said Christian Feichtinger, head of ESA mission in Russia.
Experiments conducted in space can sometimes seem abstract, irrelevant or even downright bizarre, but their impact may be closer than you think.
Launch problems caused the failure of the first Foton-M mission five years ago. But this time, the take-off went without a hitch.
Read RT’s science correspondent Paul Tadich's comments on the mission (please, follow the link).