Albert II was a male
rhesus macaque
The rhesus macaque (''Macaca mulatta''), colloquially rhesus monkey, is a species of Old World monkey. There are between six and nine recognised subspecies split between two groups, the Chinese-derived and the Indian-derived. Generally brown or g ...
monkey who was the first primate and first mammal to travel to
outer space. He flew from
Holloman Air Force Base
Holloman Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base established in 1942 located six miles (10 km) southwest of the central business district of Alamogordo, which is the county seat of Otero County, New Mexico, United States. The b ...
in New Mexico, United States, to an altitude of 83 miles (134 km) aboard a U.S.
V-2 sounding rocket
German V-2 rockets captured by the United States Army at the end of World War II were used as sounding rockets to carry scientific instruments into the Earth's upper atmosphere, and into sub-orbital space, at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) for ...
on June 14, 1949. Albert died upon landing after a parachute failure caused his capsule to strike the ground at high speed.
Albert's respiratory and cardiological data were recorded up to the moment of impact.
Albert II's flight, run by the
Alamogordo Guided Missile Test Base and organized with the help of Holloman Air Force Base, followed the likely preflight death of
Albert I before a high
mesospheric flight aboard a V-2 rocket on June 18, 1948. The capsule was redesigned in-between flights to enlarge the cramped quarters experienced by
Albert I.
Previous life launched into space
Before Albert II, the only previous known living beings
in space were fruit flies, launched by the United States in a V-2 rocket suborbital flight on February 20, 1947. The flies were recovered alive.
See also
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Animals in space
Animals in space originally served to test the survivability of spaceflight, before human spaceflights were attempted. Later, many species were flown to investigate various biological processes and the effects microgravity and space flight m ...
*
Monkeys and apes in space
Before Human spaceflight, humans went into space in the 1960s, several other animals in space, animals were launched into space, including numerous other primates, so that scientists could investigate the biological effects of spaceflight. The ...
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Alice King Chatham, who designed Albert II's oxygen mask and harness
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Laika
Laika ( ; , ; – 3 November 1957) was a Soviet space dog who was one of the first animals in space and the first to orbit the Earth. A stray mongrel from the streets of Moscow, she flew aboard the Sputnik 2 spacecraft, launched into lo ...
, a
Russian space dog, the first animal to orbit the Earth (November 3, 1957)
*
Ham
Ham is pork from a leg cut that has been preserved by wet or dry curing, with or without smoking."Bacon: Bacon and Ham Curing" in '' Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 2, p. 39. As a processed meat, the term '' ...
, a chimpanzee, the first great ape in space (January 31, 1961)
*
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin; Gagarin's first name is sometimes transliterated as ''Yuriy'', ''Youri'', or ''Yury''. (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who, aboard the first successful Human spaceflight, crewed sp ...
, the first human in space and first primate to orbit the Earth (April 12, 1961)
*
Enos, the first chimpanzee and third primate to orbit the Earth (November 29, 1961)
*
List of individual monkeys
References
1940s in spaceflight
1949 animal deaths
1949 in outer space
1949 in transport
Animals in space
Individual monkeys
June 1949 in the United States
Non-human primate astronauts of the American space program
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