The Bion satellites are built on the basis of the Zenit satellites, themselves derived from the Vostok spacecraft.

Bion has a mass of 6t, can carry 625kg of equipment, and has an operational life in orbit of thirty days. A Bion satellite can be broken down into three parts: the Drop Compartment, the Descent Compartment (SA) and the Instrument Compartment.

Only the SA Compartment is capable of returning to Earth. It contains most of the scientific payload. It is shaped like a sphere 2,3 m in diameter and has two hatches 1,2 m in diameter.

The Instrument Compartment is cylindrical in shape and has a mass of 500kg. It has a diameter of 2m and a length of 50cm. It also contains scientific experiments. The Bion capsules are very similar to the Foton capsules, but have the additional capacity to house small animals.

The French participation consists in particular of the Biobloc SF1 experiment, from the CNES Biology and Space Medicine Group. Biobloc SF1 comprises biological samples (Artemia Salina eggs, salad seeds and tobacco seeds) coupled with cosmic ray detectors. The eggs are immersed in alcohol, the tobacco seeds are placed in pierced plastic boxes and the salad seeds in boxes containing cellulose nitrate. The eggs and tobacco seeds are placed in the French compartment, and the salad seeds in the Soviet compartment.

France also took several rats on board the capsule, and the study of their brains after the flight allowed histological studies of the effect of heavy cosmic ray ions on cervical tissue.