First cat in space

The first cat to reach space was Félicette, a Parisian stray who completed a suborbital mission on a French rocket on 18 October 1963. The spacecraft reached an altitude of 154 km (95.7 miles) and returned without incident, allowing Félicette to be recovered unharmed.

In 1961, staff members at Cerma - Centre d’Enseignement et de Recherches de Médecine Aéronautique - rounded up 14 stray cats for the potential of being selected to make the trip to space. Many other countries, such as Russia, mainly chose dogs to send into space, but France opted for cats. All the felines were given numbers rather than names to ensure that the scientists would not become attached to the animals. Over two years, the cats took part in a range of astronaut training activities, such as being kept in small, confined spaces for long periods. After the training programme, a cat named “C341” was chosen to make the journey into space.

On 18 October 1963, C341 was sent into space on board a Véronique liquid-fuelled rocket launched from a French facility in the Algerian Sahara. Félicette was fired into the atmosphere, where she experienced 9.5 g, which was around double the amount of g-force that the Apollo astronauts would later feel when making their own space voyage. Félicette spent around five minutes in space before the parachutes deployed and “Astro-Cat”, as C341 was later dubbed by the press, made it safely back down to earth. Following the mission, C341 was named Felix by the French press, after the famous cartoon cat from the silent era of cinema. This was soon changed to Félicette, after CERMA confirmed she was female.

Sadly, Félicette was not destined to live out her days as a celebrated space pioneer. After two months back home, she was euthanized so that the scientists could investigate the ways in which her body was affected by the journey. Unfortunately, the scientists revealed that no useful information was discovered from the autopsy, other than the fact that brain activity could be monitored remotely.

In January of 2020, a bronze statue of Félicette was erected at the International Space University in France, so her mission can be celebrated forever. Félicette’s fame may have been overshadowed by the likes of Laika the dog and Ham the chimpanzee, but she retains a unique place in the pantheon of animal astronauts, as the first and only cat to have travelled into space.

Text: Jasmine Selbie