First dog in orbit

Laika the dog became the first dog to orbit Earth in November 1957 on board Sputnik 2 – long before any humans had dared board a space shuttle. Sadly, her vehicle was not designed to return to Earth and so Laika (which means "Barker" in Russian) died after a few days.

On 22 July 1951, two female Moscow strays – known as Dezik and Tsygan – who had been taken in by researchers from the Soviet Academy of Sciences in the early 1950s – were loaded into a pressurised capsule and launched into space on top of an R-1V rocket (a Russian-built version of the German V-2 ballistic missile). These two were the first canine suborbital astronauts. They reached an altitude of around 110 km (68.3 mi) and experienced roughly four minutes of weightlessness before returning to Earth by parachute. Both dogs were unharmed by the experience.