On Oct. 18, 1963, France launched a tuxedo cat named Félicette on a suborbital flight that carried her roughly 130 miles above Earth, according to Space. She returned alive by parachute, becoming the first — and so far only — feline to travel to space.
The flight came as the United States and the Soviet Union were sending primates, dogs and humans into space. France entered that competition with a cat.
Why it matters
Félicette's flight is a small but distinctive chapter in the history of animal spaceflight. Space reports that she remains the only cat known to have flown on a rocket, alongside a second French cat whose flight ended in the animal's death.
The mission also reflects how spacefaring nations used animals as test subjects during the Cold War, and how the treatment of those animals has since been reassessed. Nearly six decades after her flight, a crowdfunded campaign raised a statue in her honor.
A Paris stray chosen as backup
Félicette was a stray found on the streets of Paris, Space reports. She was selected as a substitute for another cat named Felix, who escaped on launch day, leaving Félicette to take the flight.
She rode a French Véronique AG1 rocket on a suborbital trajectory, reaching an altitude of about 130 miles before descending under parachute. Space notes that she came home alive and well, unlike many animal astronauts of the era.
Her time on Earth after the flight was brief. According to Space, she was euthanized two months after recovery so that scientists could examine her brain.
A second cat and a change of direction
France launched another cat on Oct. 24, 1963, but that flight went off course. Space reports the animal was found a day later and had died as a result of the journey.
After that, the French aeronautical medical research center CERMA shifted its research to flying monkeys, according to Space.
Félicette's memory was revived in 2019, when a sculpture funded through crowdfunding was unveiled at the International Space University in Strasbourg, France. European astronauts Helen Sharman, Paolo Nespoli and Reinhold Ewald attended the reveal, Space reports. She has also appeared on postage stamps issued by Chad and Comoros, both former French colonies.
In 2013, reports suggested Iran intended to send a cat to space the following year, but by Space's account that never happened.
What to watch: no further feline spaceflights are scheduled, and Félicette and her ill-fated French counterpart remain the only cats to have flown on a rocket.
