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Foton (or Photon) is the project name of two series of Russian science satellite programs. Although unmanned, the design was adapted from the manned Vostok spacecraft capsule. The primary focus of the Foton project is materials science research, but some missions have also carried experiments for other fields of research including biology. The original Foton series included 12 launches from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome from 1985 to 1999. The second series, under the name Foton-M, incorporates many design improvements over the original Foton, and is still in use. So far, there have been two launch attempts of the Foton-M. The first in 2002 from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, which ended failure due to a problem in the launch vehicle, and a second attempt in 2005 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Both the Foton and Foton-M series used Soyuz-U (11A511U and 11A511U2) rockets as launch vehicles. Starting with the Foton-7 mission, the European Space Agency has been a partner in the Foton program.
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