Félicette

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Félicette was the first cat in space, and so far the only one to survive its flight. It was part of the French space program and began its journey on October 18, 1963.

history

The experiment was started during the space race between the 1950s and 1960s. As early as November 1957, the Soviet Union had sent the dog Laika with Sputnik 2 into space. The animal died on board the satellite. The US NASA conducted a flight with the chimpanzee Ham on board in January 1961 , which survived the 16-minute suborbital flight of Mercury-Redstone 2 . The first humans followed in April 1961 with Yuri Gagarin on the Soviet side and in May 1961 with Alan Shepard on the US side.

The French Center d'Enseignement et de Recherches de Médecine Aéronautique (CERMA) began experimenting with cats in 1963 and preparing them for space flight. A centrifuge and a compression chamber were used in the training. A total of six cats went through the training process. For the first flight, the cat Félicette was chosen, a black and white patterned cat from the streets of Paris. The name was a tribute to Felix the Cat .

For research flights with cats on board, two launches with the Véronique AGI 47 sounding rocket , which was manufactured in Vernon, were planned . The starting point was the Blandine des Center interarmées d'essais d'engins spéciaux near Hammaguir in Algeria .

On October 18, 1963 at 7:09 GMT , the Véronique flight V47 took off. The engines burned for 42 seconds. During this time the acceleration was up to 9.5 g. This was followed by five minutes of weightlessness . The top of the rocket was 157 km. The re-entry into the earth's atmosphere was marked by turbulence. Almost nine minutes after take-off, the parachute of the landing capsule opened, which landed 10 minutes and 36 seconds after take-off. Brain activity was measured during the flight. The experiment succeeded and the cat came back to earth alive. The cat stayed in the laboratory for several months for some tests, but was then euthanized .

On October 24, 1963, the experiment was repeated with another cat on flight V50, but the cat was killed when the rocket crashed.

The myth of Felix

There is a rumor about a cat named Felix who was said to have been selected first but escaped from the laboratory shortly before the flight. This story was later refuted by Gérard Chatelier. Nevertheless, there are stamps from Niger, Chad and the Comoros that refer to the French space program and show Félicette, but refer to her as "Felix".

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Tara Gray: A Brief History of Animals in Space. NASA , August 2, 2004, accessed October 25, 2015 .
  2. ↑ TV recording for RTF , broadcast on November 15, 1963. Online: Félicette, la 1ère chatte astronaute. Institut national de l'audiovisuel , accessed on October 25, 2015 (French).
  3. ↑ Hammaguira in the Encyclopedia Astronautica , accessed on October 26, 2015 (English).
  4. ^ Gérard Chatelier: Preparations et lancements de chats à Hammaguir. (SWF) In: Nos premières annèes dans l'espace. Retrieved on October 26, 2015 (in French, Figure 14 shows a graphic of the flight path).
  5. ^ Gérard Chatelier: Experiences avec les chats. In: Nos premières annèes dans l'espace. Retrieved October 26, 2015 (French).
  6. ↑ Christian Honey: Animals are the real space pioneers. Motherboard / VICE , June 24, 2014, accessed October 25, 2015 .
  7. ↑ Chat Félicette. CNES , accessed October 26, 2015 .
  8. ↑ a b c Félicette, the space cat ... and Félix, who didn't exist. purr-n-fur.org.uk, accessed October 26, 2015 .
  9. ↑ china.org.cn: Top 10 animal astronauts in space. November 22, 2011, accessed October 26, 2015 .
  10. ↑ Les animaux, nos frères de l'espace. Paris Match, January 31, 2013, accessed October 26, 2015 (French).