The poor pooch was just three-years-old when she was enrolled on an intense space training programme
It’s almost been seventy years since Laika the space dog was sent to orbit the Earth on a tragically designed one-way trip.
A stray dog with a heart of gold, Laika was found roaming the streets of Russia and, at around three years old, became the unlikely hero in a groundbreaking experiment. Initially named Kudryavka, this terrier mix quickly earned the admiration of scientists who saw her as the perfect candidate to help advance space exploration.
Her mission? To be launched into the atmosphere and provide vital data on the survival prospects of humans in space. Laika’s gentle nature won over everyone she encountered, but her journey would not be an easy one. She underwent rigorous space training, including long weeks in cramped crates and tiny, confined spaces to prepare her for the unknown. On November 3, 1957, her moment arrived. Strapped into Russia’s Sputnik 2 capsule, Laika embarked on a historic voyage, becoming the first living creature to orbit Earth.
As Laika prepared for her final journey, Engineer Yevgeniy Shabarov recalled with deep emotion: “Before closing the hatch, we kissed her nose and wished her bon voyage, fully aware she wouldn’t survive the flight.” After being placed in her tiny container, Laika spent hours inside, her fate sealed. Around an hour before midnight, she was lifted atop the rocket, poised for takeoff.
During the launch, the little dog’s pulse rate tripled as the rocket roared to life, and it wasn’t until the moment of weightlessness that her heartbeat began to slow. The stress of the journey took its toll on Laika, and she became visibly agitated during the flight.
Laika’s mission was a pioneering step into the unknown: a test to determine if a living organism could survive the terrifying, high-speed impact of orbit. Though she became immortalized as the first animal to orbit space, Laika’s journey would be brief. Tragically, she survived only the first five to seven hours of the mission.
On April 14, 1968, after an astounding 162 days in orbit, Laika’s remains re-entered Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrated upon re-entry.
For years, the Soviet Union offered various conflicting explanations for Laika’s death, ranging from suffocation to a malfunction in the R-7 sustainer’s separation from the payload. The truth remained hidden, shrouded in mystery, until October 2002. That’s when Dimitri Malashenkov, one of the key specialists involved in Laika’s mission, finally revealed the heartbreaking truth.
Malashenkov confirmed that Laika’s death was caused by a combination of overheating and panic, occurring just after the flight’s fourth orbit. “It turned out that it was practically impossible to create a reliable temperature control system in such limited time constraints,” he shared in a paper presented to the World Space Congress, shedding light on the tragic reality of Laika’s final moments in space.
Tragically, it was known from the start that Laika would not survive the mission—scientists predicted she would succumb to a lack of oxygen within 10 days. Despite her swift death, the Soviet Union considered Sputnik 2 a significant success, marking a milestone in the race for space exploration.
Following Laika’s mission, the Soviets pressed on with their space experiments, sending dogs Belka and Strelka into orbit in August 1960. These two courageous animals made history as the first to return to Earth alive, paving the way for future animal missions.
Since then, a wide array of animals—from pig-tailed monkeys to tortoises, cats, and even worms—have ventured into space, all in the name of advancing scientific knowledge and human progress.
