Kosmos 605 was launched by a Soyuz-U rocket flying from Site 43/3 at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the Soviet Union.

[3] It carried several dozen male rats (possibly 25 [4] or 45 [5]), six Russian tortoises (Agrionemys horsfieldii) [1] (each in a separate box), a mushroom bed, flour beetles (Tribolium confusum[5]) in various stages of their life cycle, and living bacterial spores.

It provided data on the reaction of mammal, reptile, insect, fungal, and bacterial forms to prolonged weightlessness.

In the experiment, for the first time, a second generation of insects was obtained whose weightlessness was developed.

Growing up in a weightless state, they created a very thin and extremely bent leg and a more massive mycelium than on Earth.