Felicette: How France launched the first cat into space 60 years ago (2024)
Numerous animals have been sent into space since 1947 as part of experiments to test the survivability of spaceflight, predating human spaceflights. Today, some animals are still sent for various types of research. The first animals sent into space were fruit flies, aiming to explore the effects of radiation exposure at high altitudes. This was followed by a mission involving Albert II, a rhesus monkey, who became the first monkey, primate, and mammal in space on June 14, 1949, but tragically died on impact due to a parachute failure.
One of the most renowned missions in this field took place on November 3, 1957, when the second-ever orbiting spacecraft carried the first animal into orbit: Laika, a dog launched aboard the Soviet Sputnik 2 spacecraft. Laika didn’t survive the flight, and subsequent missions included other dogs and primates, such as Enos, the only chimpanzee to orbit the Earth in 1961.
In France, the national space program commenced in 1961, making it the third country to launch animals into space. On February 22, they sent a rat named Hector, equipped with implanted electrodes on his skull to monitor neurological activity. For their next mission, French scientists opted for a larger mammal and chose cats due to their existing neurological data. After training several cats, they selected a bicolor cat who was later named Félicette, and became the first cat in space 60 years ago.
In 1963, the Centre d’Enseignement et de Recherches de Médecine Aéronautique acquired 14 cats from a pet dealer for testing. All cats were female, chosen for their calmer temperament. They remained unnamed to avoid attachment from the scientists.
Surgically implanted permanent electrodes collected neurological data from the cats’ brains, and they underwent training, including confinement in their containers and spaceflight simulation with the high-G centrifuge chair and rocket noise.
Preparation for the launch began on October 8. On October 17, six cats were selected as candidates for the flight, with a “tuxedo” cat designated C 341 chosen for the launch due to her calm temperament and appropriate weight. Scientists attached electrodes to her forward left and right rear leg to monitor cardiac activity and glued electrodes to a foreleg for electrical impulse stimulation during the flight. A microphone on her chest monitored her breathing.
The launch occurred on October 18, 1963, using the Véronique AGI 47 sounding rocket from Vernon, Haute-Normandie. At 8:09 a.m., C 341 was launched from the Centre interarmées d’essais d’engins spéciaux site in Algeria. It was a suborbital flight lasting 13 minutes, reaching a height of 152 kilometers, with the cat experiencing five minutes of weightlessness. Following the flight, the C 341 was safely recovered.
When the flight’s biological data became public, C 341 was initially named “Félix,” but CERMA later changed it to the feminine “Félicette” as her official name. Despite surviving the trip, Félicette was euthanized two months after the launch for a necropsy to examine her brain.
Another cat was launched into space on October 24, but due to a rocket malfunction, it crashed, resulting in the cat’s death.
Nine other cats acquired for the project were euthanized at the program’s end, except for one whose health deteriorated after electrode surgery. Scientists removed the electrodes and adopted her as their mascot, naming her Scoubidou, given her scoubidou braid around her neck.
Some believe that Félicette’s flight was less popular at the time due to photos of her with electrodes implanted on her skull and the emerging animal rights movement. Despite this, Félicette’s mission played a role in establishing France’s presence in the space race. To honor her contribution to science, a campaign led by Matthey Serge Guy in 2017 resulted in the unveiling of a 1.5-meter tall bronze statue designed by sculptor Gill Parker at the International Space University in France on December 18, 2019. The statue depicts the cat perched atop planet Earth, gazing at the sky.
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At 8:09 a.m., C 341 was launched from the Centre interarmées d'essais d'engins spéciaux site in Algeria. It was a suborbital flight lasting 13 minutes, reaching a height of 152 kilometers, with the cat experiencing five minutes of weightlessness. Following the flight, the C 341 was safely recovered.
CERMA changed it to the feminine Félicette and adopted the name as official. Félicette was euthanized two months after the launch so that scientists could perform a necropsy to examine her brain.
Officially the reason was that French scientists had already accumulated a lot of data about the neurology of (translation: experimented on) cats, so were well placed to be able to see how a cat would be affected by going into space.
The memorial honors a French feline named Félicette who launched on a brief suborbital spaceflight in 1963. Although the space cat survived the 15-minute mission, she died about two months later when scientists removed electrodes from her brain to investigate how spaceflight affects the brain.
A few months after her return, she was euthanized so that the scientific team could examine her brain. Despite Félicette's scientific contributions, this intrepid feline has been mostly erased from history, Weitering wrote for Space.com in 2017, when Guy's Kickstarter campaign first debuted.
Despite surviving the trip, Félicette was euthanized two months after the launch for a necropsy to examine her brain. Another cat was launched into space on October 24, but due to a rocket malfunction, it crashed, resulting in the cat's death.
According to Animals In Space by Colin Burgess and Chris Dubbs, the Soviet Union launched dogs into flight 71 times between 1951 and 1966, with 17 deaths. The Russian space program continues to use animals in space tests, but in every case except Laika's, there has been some hope that the animal would survive.
A number of dogs have gone into space under the former Soviet Union. The most well-known was Laika in 1957. She was picked up off the streets as a stray mongrel puppy in Moscow and deemed suitable because of her gentle temperament. The scientists also believed a stray would be better at coping with adverse conditions.
Laika had actually survived only about five to seven hours after liftoff before dying of overheating and panic. It was belatedly made known that Laika's pulse rate, which had been measured with electrodes, tripled during takeoff and only came down somewhat during weightlessness.
Electrodes transmitted Laika's vital signs back to Earth, revealing the space dog died after her fourth orbit when her capsule overheated. Five months later, after thousands of orbits, Sputnik 2 — referred to as a space coffin turned shooting star — fell back to earth, disintegrating, with Laika's remains.
The first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, blazed a trail for the many female spaceflyers who would follow. Tereshkova, a Soviet cosmonaut, was selected from more than 400 applicants to launch on the Vostok 6 mission on June 16, 1963.
During her journey, which lasted less than 15 minutes, the cat reached an altitude of nearly 100 miles, briefly experiencing weightlessness and forces of up to 9.5 gs. The cat managed to survive the trip after the capsule carrying her successfully detached from the rocket, parachuting safely back to the ground.
In some European cultures it was customary to place the dried or desiccated body of a cat inside the walls of a newly built home to ward off evil spirits or as a good luck charm.
3 November 1957: Laika, a 3-year-old female dog, died in Earth orbit, confined in a small capsule named Sputnik 2. The cause of her death has been variously reported as euthanasia or oxygen starvation, but recent reports state that she died from overheating when the satellite's cooling system failed.
The truth about Laika's death was not revealed until decades later. For years, the Soviet Union stated that she had lived for several days, but in 2002, it was confirmed that she had died within hours of the launch due to stress and overheating.
Laika's launch pad to fame were the streets of Moscow. Soviet rocket scientists wanted to send dogs to space to better understand what launch, microgravity and other aspects of spaceflight might do to a human body.
A small black-and-white Parisian stray, Félicette, flew on a French rocket on a sub-orbital mission in October 1963 that reached an altitude of 154km, taking her to a place where no feline had gone before – or since.
In 1999, several Russian sources reported that Laika had died when the cabin overheated on the fourth day. In October 2002, Dimitri Malashenkov, one of the scientists behind the Sputnik 2 mission, revealed that Laika had died by the fourth circuit of flight from overheating.
Introduction: My name is Annamae Dooley, I am a witty, quaint, lovely, clever, rich, sparkling, powerful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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