Between two Fotons: status of ESA's multi-disciplinary scientific program on these missions
- Paper number
IAC-06-A2.3.01
- Author
Mr. Antonio Verga, European Space Agency (ESA)/ESTEC, The Netherlands
- Coauthor
Dr. Josef Winter, EADS Astrium, Germany
- Coauthor
Mr. René Demets, European Space Agency (ESA)/ESTEC, The Netherlands
- Coauthor
Mr. Philippe De Gieter, European Space Agency (ESA)/ESTEC, The Netherlands
- Year
2006
- Abstract
ESA’s scientific programme of microgravity experiments was hit by two significant setbacks, the FOTON-M1 launch accident on October 15th, 2002 and the loss of the Columbia Space Shuttle, minutes before its scheduled landing on February 1st, 2003. ESA wanted to adhere to established practice, i.e. to re-fly missions or experiments, which are not successful due to system failures. Immediately after these accidents, ESA began to study the possibility of re-flying most of the experiments, explored the availability of spare or qualification models of the lost payloads, and assessed with the industrial partners the effort necessary to upgrade any existing model to flight standard or to re-build new flight H/W, as appropriate. The survey was extended to other national agencies like CNES and DLR, ESA’s partners in previous FOTON missions. The main conclusion was that, in view of the nature and the size of the payloads, a FOTON re-flight was the best option. The tragic loss of the U.S. Shuttle Columbia forced ESA to rather look for re-flight possibilities of STS-107 experiments than for immediate implementation of animal research in a BION flight. The procurement of a BION flight is not ruled out but somewhat deferred to a later program, whereas the interest of the international community and other space agencies would have to be maintained. Driven by these facts, the negotiations with Russian partners led to a commonly accepted understanding for the contractual and utilisation details of two FOTON missions, their payload complement and their launch schedule. An agreement was then reached on October 21st, 2003, for an overall ESA payload mass of about 700 kg, distributed over two flights, FOTON-M2 and FOTON-M3, with launch dates on May 31st 2005 and September 2007, respectively. ESA has been using FOTON and BION since 1987 for its physical science and life science experiments. Several ESA instruments, specifically designed for FOTON/BION, had flown aboard these spacecraft. FOTON-M2, launched on 31 May 2005 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome for the first time in the FOTON history, brought back a substantial deal of scientific and technological results. FOTON-M2 was the eleventh such missions that ESA has been involved in, with a total payload mass of almost 400kg. FOTON-M2 was the first successful flight of the venerable spacecraft with up-rated performances. The Russian FOTON and BION spacecraft, conceived to conduct mainly experiments in weightlessness, are designed and built by the Central Specialised Design Bureau of the State Research and Production Space Rocket Centre (TsSKB-PROGRESS), in Samara (Russia) and made the first flight in 1985. This paper presents the main features and addresses the results of the FOTON-M2 mission, and gives an overview of ESA’s payloads and experiments on the next flight. From the ashes of FOTON-M1 and its destroyed payloads, ESA has been restoring its multi-disciplinary program, for an even larger breadth of FOTON and BION users, where highly ranked experiments benefit of the excellent microgravity conditions that such platforms guarantee. Thanks to ESA’s long experience with these missions, to their unique flexibility and typical features, and to their educational value, between two FOTON missions ESA is drawing plans to continue their exploitation.
- Abstract document