Belka (“Squirrel”) and Strelka (“Arrow”) were the next successful orbiters, spending a day in space on 19 August 1960 aboard Sputnik 5, which was a veritable Noah’s Ark of animals. The craft contained Belka, Strelka, a grey rabbit, 42 mice, two rats, flies, and several plants and fungi, as well as some slightly creepy strips of human flesh.
All the animals survived the spacecraft’s return to Earth on 20 August, although telemetry showed that one of the dogs had suffered a seizure during the fourth orbit. This led directly to the decision to limit Yuri Gagarin’s legendary flight the following year to three orbits.
Strelka, one of the passengers aboard Sputnik 5. Pretenderrs, used under Creative Commons.
“The pair had a litter of puppies themselves, which Kennedy affectionately referred to as “pupniks”. Their descendents are still going today, and Belka and Strelka were celebrated in 2010 through an animated feature film named Space Dogs”
Strelka subsequently had six puppies with Pushok, a male dog at the research base who participated in many of the ground-based experiments but didn’t travel to space. One of the puppies was named Pushinka (“Fluffy”) and was given to US president John F Kennedy’s daughter Caroline by Khrushchev in 1961.
The dog was initially kept away from the White House by Kennedy’s staff due to fears that its body may have been implanted with microphones, but after a medical check she was brought into the home and won the heart of another of Kennedy’s dogs – a Welsh terrier named Charlie. The pair had a litter of puppies themselves, which Kennedy affectionately referred to as “pupniks”. Their descendents are still going today, and Belka and Strelka were celebrated in 2010 through an animated feature film named Space Dogs.
A model of Strelka in Australia in 1993. Bignoter CC BY-SA 3.0
On 1 December 1960, tragedy struck. Mushka – who had been shortlisted for Laika’s mission but lost out – finally made it into space aboard Sputnik 6, accompanied by Pchyolka (“Little Bee”) and other animals, plants and insects. They were in good health when the rocket began its re-entry, but a last-minute navigation error meant that the craft was heading to land outside Soviet borders. Fear of foreign agents inspecting the capsule trumped the lives of the animals aboard the spacecraft, so it was intentionally destroyed, killing everything onboard.
The CIA intercepted and decoded this image of one of the dogs aboard Sputnik 6 in December 1960
On 22 December 1960, the team tried once more. Damka (“Queen of Checkers”) and Krasavka (“Little Beauty”) were selected from the pool and prepared for launch.
Almost immediately after take-off, however, the rocket encountered difficulties. The upper-stage booster failed, causing the craft to re-enter the atmosphere after reaching a maximum altitude of 214km. The backup plan in this situation was to eject the dogs and self-destruct. However, the ejector seat failed to operate, leaving the dogs stuck in the capsule as the self-destruct sequence ticked down.
Then something incredible happened. The self-destruct module also shorted out , aborting the sequence. The capsule plummeted back to Earth, landing in deep snow in Siberia. A backup self-destruct timer had been set for 60 hours, so a team scrambled to locate the craft. They found it on the first day, but without sufficient daylight to disarm the self-destruct sequence and open the capsule. They were only able to report that the window of the capsule had frosted over in the -45C temperatures of the landing site, and that no signs of life were heard from inside.
Sputnik 3 in the Tsiolkovsky State Museum. Енин Арсений used under Creative Commons.
The next day, at dawn, they returned to the capsule, fearing the worst. As they opened the hatch, however, they heard barking – Damka and Krasavka were alive. The mice that had accompanied them on the mission were not so fortunate, though – they had frozen to death.
The dogs were immediately wrapped in sheepskin coats and flown to Moscow, where they were given the best medical care. Both survived, and Krasavka was adopted by Oleg Gazenko, a lieutenant general who had fought in the second world war and the Korean war and had supervised the space mission. Krasavka went on to have a litter of puppies and live a contented life, dying at home 14 years later.
“To test the spacecraft communications, they placed a recording of a choir in Ivanovich’s chest, so that any radio stations picking up the signal would understand he wasn’t real.”
As the Soviet spaceflight programme ramped up towards its first human launch in 1961, the dogs began to be accompanied by dummy cosmonauts. Chernushka (“Blackie”) flew on Sputnik 9 on 9 March 1961 with a dummy named Ivan Ivanovich, some mice and a guinea pig. To test the spacecraft communications, they placed a recording of a choir in Ivanovich’s chest, so that any radio stations picking up the signal would understand he wasn’t real. He was ejected at altitude and parachuted to the ground, while Chernushka was recovered unharmed from the capsule.
Zvyozdochka (“Starlet”, named by Gagarin himself) flew on Sputnik 10 on the final practice flight before Gagarin’s voyage on 25 March 1961, again accompanied by Ivanovich and his choir recording (this time augmented with a recipe for cabbage soup to confuse anyone listening in). Again, both the dummy and the dog returned safely to Earth. Ivanovich was auctioned in 1993 for $189,500, still in his spacesuit. Today, he lives in the National Air and Space museum in Washington DC.
A 1966 Soviet stamp celebrating record-breakers Ugolyok and Veterok. Public domain.
Following Gagarin’s triumphant mission on 12 April 1961, the Soviets slowly dismantled their now-redundant dogs-in-space programme. Its final flight, the Cosmos 110 mission, came five years later, on 22 February 1966. It carried two dogs – Veterok (“Light Breeze”) and Ugolyok (“Coal”), who spent a record-breaking 22 days in orbit, testing whether life could survive for longer durations in orbit. As well as Veterok and Ugolyok, it carried yeast cells, blood cells and live bacteria.
“The long-duration mission was a success, and the dogs landed safely back on Earth. However, their medical checkups afterwards revealed that their muscle and bone structures had sustained damage as a result of spending such a long time in microgravity.”
The long-duration mission was a success, and the dogs landed safely back on Earth. However, their medical checkups afterwards revealed that their muscle and bone structures had sustained damage as a result of spending such a long time in microgravity. This paved the way for later discoveries concerning the biological effects of spaceflight on the human body. Veterok and Ugolyok held the record for spaceflight duration until Skylab 2 in 1973, and they still hold the record for the longest spaceflight by dogs.
A number of other dogs flew on sub-orbital flights, including Dymka (“Smoky”), Modnitsa (“Fashionable”) and Kozyavka (“Little Gnat”), as well as at least four others whose names are unknown. Almost all survived, with the exception of two of the unnamed dogs, who perished in failed launches.
Space dogs Veterok and Ugoljok. Tekniska museet, under Creative Commons.
Without their contributions, and those of their canine colleagues, the Soviet Union would never have been able to launch Sputnik in 1957 and Gagarin in 1961, and the space race may never have taken off. Their heroism and bravery fuelled the earliest space exploration missions, paving the way for humans to later follow.
So, to Dezik and Tsygan, Smelaya, Malyshka, ZIB, Ryzhik, Albina and Tsyganka, Mushka, Otvazhnaya, and Snezhunka, Bars and Lisichka, Belka and Strelka, Pushok, Pchyolka, Damka and Krasavka, Chernushka, Zvyozdochka, Veterok and Ugolyok, Dymka, Modnitsa, Kozyavka and, most of all, Laika – thank you for everything you’ve done for mankind.
Хорошая собака – or, as we say in the west, good dog.
READ THIS NEXT: After New Horizons, when will we revisit the outer solar system?
Lead image: V Vizu, used under Creative Commons
Disclaimer: Some pages on this site may include an affiliate link. This does not effect our editorial in any way.
