Two dogs returned alive from orbit aboard Sputnik 5
On this day · 19 August 1960
Belka and Strelka circled Earth seventeen times and came home wagging, clearing the way for human spaceflight.
On August 19, 1960, the Soviet Sputnik 5 (Korabl-Sputnik 2) lifted off from Baikonur carrying the dogs Belka (“Squirrel”) and Strelka (“Little Arrow”). After 17 orbits and roughly a day in space, the capsule re-entered and the dogs came home alive and healthy on August 20, the first animals to orbit Earth and survive.
They did not travel alone. Their menagerie included 40 mice, 2 rats, a gray rabbit, flies, plants, and fungi, and the whole crew survived the trip. Earlier orbital flights, including Laika’s in 1957, had never been designed to bring their passengers back.
Their safe return gave Soviet engineers the confidence to put a human in orbit.
Less than eight months later, Yuri Gagarin made that flight. Strelka later had a litter of puppies, one of which, Pushinka, was sent to President John F. Kennedy’s family, a small four-legged thaw in the Cold War.
Sources & references
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