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9/17/2007
 On 14 September, at 11.00 UTC, the Russian space capsule Foton-M3 was launched on a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur in Kazakhstan. Foton-M3 carries experiments for research in microgravity (near weightlessness). The communication system TSU (Telescience Support Unit), developed by the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) for the European Space Agency (ESA), handles eight of the experiment units onboard.
The TSU provides scientists with real-time data and images during the mission and enables the users to re-configure their experiments if needed. It stores and processes data from the experiments and transmits them to SSC’s control station at Esrange Space Center in northern Sweden.
Three hours after launch, the SSC control center established its first contact with the TSU and sent its first commands to the system, following an immediate request from ESA to re-configure one of the experiments. During the following pass, 90 minutes later, the TSU transmitted its first data load. Since then, the control center has communicated with Foton on each pass, four to five times a day, receiving data and sending several commands for re-configuration. Many of the responsible scientists are present at Esrange during the twelve days’ mission.
This is SSC’s fourth delivery to ESA of a TSU for Foton, and this time, SSC’s engineers have developed a new generation of the system. This is also the first mission using SSC's software RAMSES, a system for real-time studies based on SSC's successful communication software used for Swedish satellites.
”Based on the experience from previous successful flights on Foton, we have developed the TSU further, improving its flexibility and capacity to enable even better control of these important experiments”, says Stefan Lundin, project manager for SSC’s contribution to the Foton-M3 mission.
On the unmanned retrievable capsule Foton, scientists can carry out experiments in microgravity, very close to entire “weightlessness”, for a much longer time than what is possible on sounding rockets but for a shorter time, and to lower costs, than on the international space station. By reducing the effect of the gravitational pull, valuable research can be performed in many fields of science. On Foton-M3, the TSU handles the communication with biological, physical and technological experiments.
Foton-M3 orbits the Earth at around 300 km altitude. It will complete around 190 orbits before landing in a desert area of a Russian territory, close to the Kazakhstan border, on 26 September.
For more information please contact SSC's project manager Stefan Lundin, tel +46 70 528 22 01.
Read more about the TSU on SSC’s website
Read more about Foton-M3 and the experiments on ESA's website
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