DOGS RETURN FROM SPACE

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28679, 1 September 1958, Page 11

DOGS RETURN FROM SPACE

Rocket Flight Of 279 Miles

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 7 p.m.) MOSCOW, August 30. Russia has successfully launched a rocket containing two dogs and brought them safely back to earth at a pre-arranged spot from a height of 279 miles. The Soviet news agency, Tass, announced this yesterday. The dogs were sent up in a one-stage rocket launched last Wednesday under the International Geophysical Year programme. After reaching the estimated height of 450 kilometres the rocket landed “in a precisely allocated sector.” The dogs were in good condition. The dogs were ejected after being in the rocket for twenty-five minutes. They landed by parachute. The dogs were enclosed in a special hermetically-sealed cabin.

The total weight of the scientific apparatus, the cabin, with the animals and other instruments lifted by the rocket, was 1690 kilograms (37251 b

During the flight, the apparatus, including instruments to study the upper atmosphere, worked normally and ensured the supply of essential scientific data, which were now under study, Tass said. The maximum height frond which animals have previously been reported to have arrived safely back on earth in Russia was 212 kilometres (about 125 miles), achieved by a dog named Albina late last year. The cabin containing the dogs sent up on Wednesday was fitted with a system of regeneration, a separate system for recording biological functions, and a movie camera for filming the behaviour of the animals during the flight. No Rotation The rocket, during the whole duration of its flight was stabilised, which prevented its rotation around vertical and horizontal axes. The rocket was fitted with a radio-interferometer for measuring the concentration of free electrons in the ionosphere, and ionisation and magnetic pressure gauges for measuring air pressure. It was also fitted with recording instruments for impacts of micro-meteoric particles, a sun spectograph for recording the ultra violet section of the spectruln, and an instrument recording the infra-red radiation of the earth and of the terrestrial atmosphere. The dogs were named Byelanka (little white one) and Pystraya (brindle). They weighed about 17|lb and had been trained for several months, Tass said. The biologists who prepared the dogs for the flight said the animals had been so well accustomed to the hermetically sealed cabin, instruments, and flight conditions, that they used to enter the cabin quietly and voluntarily. “For that reason the data obtained by the biologists during the experience show the behaviour of a living organism and the state of its functions in conditions of high altitude flight, unburdened by additional fears,” Tass said.