Foton-M No.4

Foton-M No.4 is a Russian microgravity and bioscience research spacecraft launched in July 2014 as part of the Foton programme. It is the fourth spacecraft of the Foton-M series and the first to use the 34KSM configuration, which puts the equipment module of a Yantar satellite in place of the Zenit module used on earlier missions. It was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 18 July 2014 on a Soyuz-2-1a rocket. After four orbits it stopped answering commands, so a planned orbit-raising manoeuvre was not made, and control was regained on 26 July after some of the microgravity experiments had already begun. On board were geckos, silkworm eggs, dried seeds, fruit flies and mushrooms for studies of weightlessness and cosmic radiation, plus a semiconductor crystal growth experiment. The agency brought the spacecraft home on 1 September, two weeks earlier than planned. The Progress Rocket Space Centre names the Foton series among the spacecraft it developed.