To satisfy Khrushchev's demands, the orbital canine flight was expedited for the November launch. Soviet rocket engineers had long intended a canine orbit before attempting human spaceflight since 1951, they had lofted 12 dogs into sub-orbital space on ballistic flights, working gradually toward an orbital mission possibly some time in 1958. The planners settled on an orbital flight with a dog. Khrushchev specifically wanted his engineers to deliver a "space spectacular," a mission that would repeat the triumph of Sputnik I, stunning the world with Soviet prowess. To meet the November deadline, a new craft would have to be built. A more sophisticated satellite was already under construction, but it would not be ready until December this satellite would later become Sputnik 3. Īfter the success of Sputnik 1, Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, wanted a spacecraft launched on November 7, 1957, the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. It features a dog standing on top of a rocket. A small monument in her honour was built near the military research facility in Moscow which prepared Laika's flight to space. On April 11, 2008, Russian officials unveiled a monument to Laika. The experiment aimed to prove that a living passenger could survive being launched into orbit and endure weightlessness, paving the way for human spaceflight and providing scientists with some of the first data on how living organisms react to spaceflight environments. The true cause and time of her death was not made public until 2002 instead, it was widely reported that she died when her oxygen ran out on day six, or as Soviet government initially claimed, she was euthanised prior to oxygen depletion. Laika likely died within hours after launch from overheating, possibly caused by a failure of the central R-7 sustainer to separate from the payload. Laika, a stray dog, originally named Kudryavka ( Russian: Кудрявка Little Curly), underwent training with two other dogs, and was eventually chosen as the occupant of the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 that was launched into outer space on November 3, 1957.
Some scientists believed humans would be unable to survive the launch or the conditions of outer space, so engineers viewed flights by non-human animals as a necessary precursor to human missions. 1954 – November 3, 1957) was a Soviet space dog that became the first animal to orbit the Earth – as well as the first animal to die in orbit.Īs little was known about the impact of spaceflight on living creatures at the time of Laika's mission, and the technology to de-orbit had not yet been developed, there was no expectation of Laika's survival. Laika ( Russian: Лайка, literally meaning "Barker" c. Romanian stamp from 1959 with Laika (the caption reads "Laika, first traveller into Cosmos")