Kosmos 605 (russian: link=no, Космос 605), or Bion 1, was a Bion satellite. Kosmos 605 was the first of eleven Bion satellites.

Launch

Kosmos 605 was launched by a

Soyuz-U The Soyuz-U launch vehicle was an improved version of the original Soyuz rocket. Soyuz-U was part of the R-7 family of rockets based on the R-7 Semyorka missile. Members of this rocket family were designed by the TsSKB design bureau and cons ...

rocket flying from Site 43/3 at the

Plesetsk Cosmodrome Plesetsk Cosmodrome ( rus, Космодром «Плесецк», r=Kosmodrom "Plesetsk", p=kəsmɐˈdrom plʲɪˈsʲet͡sk) is a Russian spaceport located in Mirny, Arkhangelsk Oblast, about 800 km north of Moscow and approximately 200&n ...

in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. The satellite was initially launched in a

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never mor ...

with a

perigee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any ellip ...

of and an

apogee An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any ellip ...

of with an

orbital inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Earth ...

of 62.80° ant an

orbital period The orbital period (also revolution period) is the amount of time a given astronomical object takes to complete one orbit around another object. In astronomy, it usually applies to planets or asteroids orbiting the Sun, moons orbiting planets ...

of 90.70 minutes.

Mission

The spacecraft orbited the

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

for 21 days until its biological capsule returned to Earth on 22 November 1973 in a region of northwestern

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

. It carried several dozen male rats (possibly 25 or 45 ), six

Russian tortoise The Russian tortoise (''Testudo horsfieldii''), also commonly known as the Afghan tortoise, the Central Asian tortoise, Horsfield's tortoise, four-clawed tortoise, and the (Russian) steppe tortoise, is a threatened species of tortoise in the fam ...

s ''(Agrionemys horsfieldii)'' (each in a separate box), a mushroom bed, flour beetles ('' Tribolium confusum'') in various stages of their life cycle, and living bacterial spores. It provided data on the reaction of mammal, reptile, insect, fungal, and bacterial forms to prolonged weightlessness.

Results

After returning, the animals found several functional changes, such as decreased body

temperature Temperature is a physical quantity that expresses quantitatively the perceptions of hotness and coldness. Temperature is measured with a thermometer. Thermometers are calibrated in various temperature scales that historically have relied o ...

difficulty breathing Shortness of breath (SOB), also medically known as dyspnea (in AmE) or dyspnoea (in BrE), is an uncomfortable feeling of not being able to breathe well enough. The American Thoracic Society defines it as "a subjective experience of breathing disc ...

, muscle atrophy, decreased bone mechanical strength and decreased mass of some

internal organ In biology, an organ is a collection of tissues joined in a structural unit to serve a common function. In the hierarchy of life, an organ lies between tissue and an organ system. Tissues are formed from same type cells to act together in a f ...

s and

gland In animals, a gland is a group of cells in an animal's body that synthesizes substances (such as hormones) for release into the bloodstream (endocrine gland) or into cavities inside the body or its outer surface (exocrine gland). Structure De ...

s. No pathological changes were found. 3–4 weeks after landing, most of these changes receded and the animals returned to normal. In the experiment, for the first time, a second generation of insects was obtained whose weightlessness was developed. No differences were detected between the second and the first generation. The influence of space conditions on the development of fungi was also found. Growing up in a weightless state, they created a very thin and extremely bent leg and a more massive mycelium than on Earth. Kosmos 605 also tested means of protection against

ionizing radiation Ionizing radiation (or ionising radiation), including nuclear radiation, consists of subatomic particles or electromagnetic waves that have sufficient energy to ionize atoms or molecules by detaching electrons from them. Some particles can travel ...

References

Bibliography

* Kozlov, D. I. (1996), Mashnostroenie, ed.; Konstruirovanie avtomaticheskikh kosmicheskikh apparatov, Moscow,

ISBN The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier that is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency. An ISBN is assigned to each separate edition and ...

* Melnik, T. G. (1997), Nauka, ed.; Voenno-Kosmicheskiy Sili, Moscow, ISBN * "Bion' nuzhen lyudyam", Novosti Kosmonavtiki, (6): 35, 1996 Bion satellites Kosmos satellites Spacecraft launched in 1973 1973 in spaceflight 1973 in the Soviet Union {{USSR-spacecraft-stub

Launch

Mission

Results

See also

References

Bibliography