Laika, the first dog in space, died after a few hours in orbit, according to new research by a Russian space expert.
The Siberian husky with a mongrel mix, rounded up as a stray and trained as the planet’s first cosmonaut, probably died from overheating on November 3 1957 when Soviet ground engineers failed to notice the problem.
Laika (meaning “barker”) went to an altitude of almost 3 219 kilometres aboard Sputnik 2, one month after the Soviet Union stunned the world and triggered the space race with Sputnik 1, the first object in orbit.
For the next 40 years, Kremlin chiefs allowed the rest of the world to believe that Laika lived to see the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution and then died peacefully.
Laika was one of 10 dogs to complete a special space training course, and one of three selected by space scientists: Laika was to be the cosmonaut, Albina her understudy and Mushka the “technological dog” on which ground crew could test the satellite’s life support systems.
For the first few hours after launch, Laika’s heart beat normally, cabin pressure stayed steady and oxygen levels were constant. But humidity and temperature gradually increased.
After about five hours, the telemetry system began to fail: what happened thereafter can never be known, but Laika probably died, said Dr Dmitry Malashenkov, of Russia’s Institute of Biomedical Problems. The capsule that became her coffin burned up in the atmosphere in April 1958 after 2,570 orbits.
Laika became the most famous dog in space — US newspapers christened her Muttnik — but she was only the first. The Russians put up 13 others. Only five died in flight. Strelka and Belka went into orbit in 1960 with 40 mice, two rats and some plants, in what was by then an obvious preparation for a human launch.
President John F Kennedy angrily asked US scientists why the world’s first pair of space dogs were called Strelka and Belka rather than Rover and Fido. Soviet scientists took note: after their heaven-sent hounds returned to Earth, they bred puppies from Strelka and gave one to Kennedy.
A human soon followed Laika’s lead. Yuri Gagarin made history aboard Vostok 1 in April 1961.
Laika became the name of a brand of Soviet cigarette, and a face on a monument at Star City, Moscow. There is also a plaque bearing her name at the biomedical research centre where she was trained. – Guardian Unlimited