- 18 Oct 1963 Launch
- About 157 km Peak altitude
- About 13 minutes Flight time
- Safe landing By parachute
The mission
In the early 1960s France's space programme wanted to know how a body copes with launch, weightlessness and re-entry. Dogs and monkeys had flown for other countries. France picked cats, presumably reasoning that anything that survives being put in a carrier can survive anything.
Félicette was one of several cats in training. She was chosen, the story goes, partly because she was calm and kept her weight steady. Her rocket, a Véronique AGI, launched from the Algerian Sahara, carried her past 150 kilometres, and brought her capsule back down under a parachute. She was recovered alive, and scientists studied the recordings from her flight.
Mission log (reconstructed)
| Time | Event | Félicette's assessment |
|---|---|---|
| T−0 | Launch | Absolutely not. |
| T+1 min | Engine burn, heavy g-forces | She would like to speak to a manager. |
| T+3 min | Weightlessness | Briefly fun. Will not admit this. |
| T+9 min | Re-entry | Knocks nothing off any tables. Has nothing to knock. |
| T+13 min | Parachute landing in the desert | Finally, the world's largest litter box. |
The statue she deserved
For decades Félicette was almost forgotten, while the space dogs got stamps and statues. In 2017 a crowdfunding campaign set out to fix that, and in 2019 a bronze Félicette, perched on top of the Earth, was unveiled at the International Space University in Strasbourg. She is gazing upward, which is how every cat gazes at a shelf they intend to reach.
Myth or meow?
"Félicette was a boy cat called Félix." Meow, it's a myth. Some early newspaper reports and souvenir stamps credited a tomcat named Félix. The actual astronaut was a female cat, and she has been owed a correction for over fifty years.
