A Day in Astronomy: Dogs in Space

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Image (Credit): Laika in a training capsule prior to her mission. (Sputnik / Alamy)

On this day in 1960, the Soviet Union sent two dogs into space on a sub-orbital flight – Otvazhnaya and Malyok. Both returned from the trip safely.

Between 1951 and 1966, it is estimated that the Soviets sent 48 dogs into space on both sub-orbital and orbital flights, while China sent only two dogs into space on sub-orbital flights. The United States did not send any dogs into space. Of the 48 Soviet dogs, 20 died in space. Both Chinese dogs survived.

Little Otvazhnaya, which means “brave” in Russian, flew on the most missions of any of the dogs. She flew on five sub-orbital missions between July 1959 and September 1960.

The most famous Soviet space dog, Laika (pictured above), was the first dog to fly on an orbital flight on November 3, 1957. She did not survive the mission.

One of the Russian canine cosmonauts has a link to the Kennedy family. Strelka, one of the first dogs to orbit the Earth and survive, had six puppies, including one named Pushinka, or “Fluffy.” Pushinka was presented as a gift to President John F. Kennedy’s family in 1961.

Image (Credit): Letter from President Kennedy to Soviet Chairman Krushchev thanking him for Pushinka. (JFK Library)

Space Quote: One Less Sentry Watching Mars

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Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of the MAVEN spacecraft orbiting Mars. (NASA/Goddard/University of Colorado/Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics)

“The MAVEN mission has truly advanced our understanding of the Martian atmosphere and evolution. This dataset has had a tremendous impact on the field…Our science team is exceptionally proud of all of these amazing discoveries.”

–Comment by Shannon Curry, MAVEN’s principal investigator and a researcher at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, regarding the official end of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution’s (MAVEN) 11-year mission. NASA lost contact with the spacecraft last December. You can read more about MAVEN’s accomplishments over the years at this NASA site.

Space Stories: ESA & China Are Smiling, Blue Origin Beats SpaceX to the Moon, and JWST Analyzes Exoplanet Atmosphere

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Here are some recent space-related stories.

—European Space Agency: “Smile Lifts Off on Quest to Reveal Earth’s Invisible Shield Against the Solar Wind“

The Smile spacecraft lifted off on a Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana at 04:52 BST / 05:52 CEST (00:52 local time) on 19 May 2026. The launch marks the beginning of an ambitious mission to better understand solar storms, geomagnetic storms, and the science of space weather…Smile is a collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). It will reveal how Earth responds to the streams of particles and bursts of radiation from the Sun, using an X-ray camera to make the world’s first X-ray observations of Earth’s magnetic shield, and an ultraviolet camera to watch the resulting northern lights non-stop for 45 hours at a time.

—The Guardian: “Nasa Selects Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin for First of Three Uncrewed Lunar Missions“

Nasa announced on Tuesday ambitious plans for three uncrewed lunar missions this year to kickstart construction of a $20bn moon base, and said it had chosen the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, ahead of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, to conduct the first...[NASA’s Administrator] said the three missions planned for 2026 would be followed by “more than a dozen” more in the coming years to test systems and equipment. He said the highly successful Artemis II mission last month that sent four astronauts around the moon for the first time since 1972 had been both a catalyst and incentive to advance the moon base plan.

—Astrobiology: “Astronomers Observe Exoplanet Atmospheres With New Cloud-detecting Method“

Every morning, clouds roll in, and by evening, they have cleared off. This sounds like a weather forecast for a coastal city here on Earth — but it’s for WASP-94A b, a well-studied gas giant orbiting a star located nearly 700 light-years away. A new study published in the journal Science documents the first detection of repeating cloud cycles on a hot Jupiter exoplanet. The first author of the study is Sagnick Mukherjee, a 51 Pegasi b postdoctoral fellow at Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration. Mukherjee is part of a research team that analyzed data from the James Webb Space Telescope targeting WASP-94 A b, a gas giant in the constellation Microscopium. The team discovered that the planet’s morning side is blanketed in clouds of magnesium silicate, the same mineral found in common rocks, while its evening side is under clear skies.

Note: Here is the podcast version of this post.

The ISS Will Need to Wait a Little Longer for Supplies

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: NASA

Everything was set for a cargo mission to the International Space Station earlier today until the weather decided to mess things up.

As a result, the CRS-34 mission with its 6,500 pounds of supplies will be delayed for another day.

Here is a summary of some of the cargo going up to the station tomorrow:

  • ODYSSEY: Evaluating how well Earth-based microgravity simulators recreate space conditions.
  • STORIE: Monitoring charged particles in orbit around the Earth, which respond to space weather and can affect assets like power grids and satellites. 
  • Laplace: Studying the movement and collision of dust particles in microgravity to understand particle motion in space.
  • Green Bone: Observing how bone cells grow and develop in space on a bone scaffold made from wood.
  • SPARK: Evaluating how red blood cells and the spleen change in space for future astronauts.

Fingers crossed for better weather tomorrow.

Update: The CRS-34 launch has now been moved to Friday, May 15th.

A Day in Astronomy: Apollo 13 Sets a Distance Record

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Image (Credit): Apollo 13 mission patch. (NASA)

On this day in 1970, the Apollo capsule traveled to the farthest point from Earth of any Apollo mission. It was an unbroken record until last week, with the Artemis II mission exceeded this distance by 4,105 miles.

Of course, that was a great achievement in an otherwise troubled Apollo mission. The Apollo 13 crew, consisting of Commander James A. Lovell, Command Module Pilot John L. “Jack” Swigert and Lunar Module Pilot Fred W. Haise, would never make it to the surface of the Moon. That is a story worth reading (as well as a movie worth watching).