Sputnik 5
Encyclopedia
Korabl-Sputnik 2 also known as Sputnik 5 in the West, was a Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 artificial satellite
Satellite
In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....

, and the third test flight of the Vostok spacecraft
Vostok spacecraft
The Vostok was a type of spacecraft built by the Soviet Union. The first human spaceflight in history was accomplished on this spacecraft on April 12, 1961, by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin....

. It was the first spaceflight to send animals into orbit and return them safely back to Earth. Launched on August 19, 1960 it paved the way for the first human orbital flight, Vostok 1
Vostok 1
Vostok 1 was the first spaceflight in the Vostok program and the first human spaceflight in history. The Vostok 3KA spacecraft was launched on April 12, 1961. The flight took Yuri Gagarin, a cosmonaut from the Soviet Union, into space. The flight marked the first time that a human entered outer...

, which was launched less than eight months later.

Korabl-Sputnik 2 was the second attempt to launch a Vostok capsule with dogs on board. The first try on July 29 had failed when the R-7 launch vehicle suffered a malfunction of one of its strap on boosters. A combustion chamber broke apart during ascent, causing the strap on to lose thrust and separate from the rest of the booster, which then crashed downrange. Both dogs were killed. The failure was believed to have been caused by longitudinal vibration which resulted in the combustion chamber disintegrating. Vibration had been responsible for several previous R-7 failures and this accident caused a considerable uproar since the problem was supposedly fixed.

The launch of Korabl-Sputnik 2 occurred on 19 August 1960, using a Vostok-L
Vostok-L
The Vostok-L , GRAU index 8K72 was a rocket used by the Soviet Union to conduct several early tests of the Vostok spacecraft. It was derived from the Luna rocket, with a slightly enlarged second stage to accommodate the larger payload, and was a member of the R-7 family of rockets...

 carrier rocket. Official sources reported the launch time to have been 08:44:06 UTC, however Sergei Voevodin gave it as 08:38:24. A radio station in Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....

, West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....

, was among the first to pick up signals from the spacecraft, which were confirmed on the third orbit by a Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 radio station.

The spacecraft carried two dogs, Belka and Strelka, 40 mice, two rats and a variety of plants, as well as a television camera which took images of the dogs. The spacecraft returned to Earth at 06:00:00 UTC on 20 August, the day after its launch, although telemetry revealed that one dog had suffered seizures during the fourth orbit. Thus, it was decided to limit the first manned flight to three orbits. All of the animals were recovered safely, and a year later Strelka had a litter of puppies, one of which was sent to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy as a goodwill present from the Soviet Union. President Kennedy's advisors initially opposed taking the dog for fear that the Soviets might have planted microphones in its body to listen in on national defense meetings.
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