Mission type Bioscience SATCAT no. 08450 Spacecraft type Bion | COSPAR ID 1975-110A Mission duration 19.5 days Launch date 25 November 1975 | |
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Operator Institute of Biomedical Problems / NASA Similar Kosmos 936, Kosmos 1514, Kosmos 1129, Kosmos 1667, Molniya | ||
Bion 3 or Kosmos 782 (in Russian: Бион 3, Космос782) was a Bion satellite. It was the first joint U.S.–Soviet biomedical research flight. It carried 14 experiments prepared by seven countries in all, with participation from scientists in France, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Romania.
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Mission
Launched from Plesetsk Cosmodrome on November 25, 1975, the biosatellite was recovered in Siberia on December 15 after 19.5 days. It included a centrifuge with revolving and fixed sections in which identical groups of animals, plants, and cells could be compared. The subject animals included white rats and tortoises. The effects of aging on fruit fly livers and plant tissues with grafted cancerous growths were also studied.
More than 20 different species were flown on the mission, including 25 unrestrained male Wistar rats, fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster), carrot tissues, and 1,000 embryos of the fish Fundulus heteroclitus (a small shallow-water minnow). A U.S. radiation dosimeter experiment was also carried out without using biological materials. This was the only Bion mission where the United States provided some of the biological specimens.