When were animals sent up in space?

Before human spaceflights, animals in space were used to evaluate the durability of spaceflight. Other non-human animals were later flown to study various biological processes and the impact of microgravity and space flight on them. Bioastronautics is a branch of bioengineering that focuses on the study and maintenance of life in space. To date, the United States, the Soviet Union, France, Argentina, China, Japan, and Iran have all sent animals into space.

The first animal was launched on the Soviet Sputnik 2 in 1957, a little female dog named Laika. Laika was placed in a pressurized chamber within a 1,103-pound (500-kilogram) capsule, and she perished after a few days in orbit. The United States sent a squirrel monkey dubbed Old Reliable into orbit on the Jupiter flight on December 12, 1958, but it drowned during retrieval. NASA launched two female monkeys into orbit on another Jupiter trip the following year, and both were retrieved alive.