About Bion, this is what I found in <b>Russia in Space</b> by Harvey<br /><br />Bion vehicle was created after an agreement between NASA and the USSR academy of Science in 1962.<br /><br />I believe the last flight was of Bion-11 in december 1996. Already back then it was a pretty international programme, with live samples from various countries. On return of Bion-11 one of the monkeys died, and NASA was forced to stop cooperating in this flights due to pressure from American Animal rights activist in May 1997. Bion-12 was subsequently canceled, although the Russian partners were looking for other costumers.<br /><br />The capsules are build in Samara, the same plant that produces the Soyuz LVs. The Bion was supposed to be replaced by a much bigger Nika-B vehicle, but little has been heard since<br /><br />The Foton-M programme is somewhat similar to the Bion programme, with Foton focused on material development, and Bion focused on biology.<br /><br />