The aluminum cabin was equipped with a television camera, along with sensors to measure ambient pressure and temperature, as well as the canine passenger's blood pressure, breath frequency and heartbeat. The core of the second satellite would be a dog cabin, measuring 0.8 meters in length and 0.64 meters in diameter, it derived from the retrievable container, used to launch dogs onboard research rockets. Exactly how "new" was still opened to debate half a century later. To meet the November anniversary deadline, an "entirely new" concept for a Sputnik carrying a dog had emerged, most sources claim. At the same time, a mere repetition of the previous launch was not good enough. However, it could not possibly be ready for takeoff before December 1957, therefore it was destined to become the third satellite. ( 261) This exuberance would not last, however.Īt the time of the decision to launch Sputnik-2, Korolev had a sophisticated research satellite (Object D) in the works. As remembered by Boris Chertok, one of Korolev's associates, in the aftermath of the first Sputnik the main business of the day for remaining employees at OKB-1 was drawing up lists for government awards and bragging to each other about upcoming bonuses. With the launch of the first artificial satellite on October 4, 1957, and resulting world-wide fanfares at full blast, Korolev dismissed many of his staff at OKB-1 design bureau for a long overdue vacation. Perched on top of a giant rocket, a tiny window could provide a glimpse of the home planet to the first creature ever sent to orbit the Earth. Years after Sputnik 2 burned up in the atmosphere, conflicting scenarios of Laika's death were circulating in the West, along with few other misconceptions about this historic mission. The Cold War politics left no time for designers to develop a reliable life-support system, not to mention the heat shield to protect a spacecraft from a fiery reentry. However it soon became clear that the animal would not return. Now four weeks later, the Soviet press boasted about the 508.3-kilogram spacecraft carrying the first-ever live passenger - a dog named Laika. spacecraft under development at the time. The 84-kilogram Sputnik-1 looked very heavy compared to the U.S. The Space Age had barely started less than a month before, with the launch of the first Soviet satellite on October 4, 1957. On November 3, 1957, the USSR stunned the world with a new space sensation - the launch of Sputnik-2 carrying a dog onboard. The USSR orbits second artificial satellite with dog Laika onboard “I wanted to do something nice for her: She had so little time left to live.The author of this page will appreciate comments, corrections and imagery related to the subject. Vladimir Yazdovsky wrote in a book about Soviet space medicine, as quoted by the AP. He even brought her home to play with his children before she began her space odyssey. One of Laika’s human counterparts in the Soviet space program recalled her as a good dog. Sputnik 2 continued to orbit the Earth for five months, then burned up when it reentered the atmosphere in April 1958. Nearly a half-century later, Russian officials found themselves handling PR fallout once again after it was revealed that reports of Laika’s humane death were greatly exaggerated.Īlthough they had long insisted that Laika expired painlessly after about a week in orbit, an official with Moscow’s Institute for Biological Problems leaked the true story in 2002: She died within hours of takeoff from panic and overheating, according to the BBC. When Laika’s vessel, Sputnik 2, shot into orbit, the U.S. Just a month earlier, they had launched Sputnik, the world’s first satellite. (Other dogs had gone into space before Laika, but only for sub-orbital launches.) The mission was another in a series of coups for the Soviet Union, which was then leading the way in space exploration while the United States lagged. All of the 36 dogs the Soviets sent into space - before Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth - were strays, chosen for their scrappiness. She was promoted to cosmonaut based partly on her size (small) and demeanor (calm), according to the Associated Press. Laika was a stray, picked up from the Moscow streets just over a week before the rocket was set to launch. The flight was meant to test the safety of space travel for humans, but it was a guaranteed suicide mission for the dog, since technology hadn’t advanced as far as the return trip. 3, in 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first-ever living animal into orbit: a dog named Laika. It was a Space Race victory that would have broken Sarah McLachlan’s heart.
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