Biosatellite 3, also known as Biosat 3 and Biosatellite D, was a third and final mission in the

Biosatellite program NASA, NASA's Biosatellite program was a series of three Uncrewed spacecraft, uncrewed artificial satellites to assess the effects of spaceflight, especially radiation and weightlessness, on living organisms. Each was designed to reenter Earth's at ...

. It was launched on a Delta-N rocket from

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the sta ...

on June 29, 1969, The intent had been to fly a 6-kg male

Southern pig-tailed macaque The southern pig-tailed macaque (''Macaca nemestrina''), also known as the Sundaland pig-tailed macaque and the Sunda pig-tailed macaque, is a medium-sized macaque that lives in Sundaland, southern Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. It is known ...

(''Macaca nemestrina'') named "Bonny" in

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

for 30 days. However, after only 8.8 days in orbit, the mission was terminated because of the subject's deteriorating health. High development costs were a strong incentive for maximising the scientific return from the mission. Because of this, the scientific goals had become exceedingly ambitious over time, and a great many measurements were conducted on the single research subject flown. Although the mission was highly successful from a technical standpoint, the science results were apparently compromised. Bonny, dubbed an "astromonk" by the American press (as opposed to the chimpanzees from earlier American missions who were nicknamed "chimponauts") died on 8 July, one day after the biological capsule's successful recovery from the Pacific."Astromonk Dies After Return"
''Pittsburgh Press'', July 8, 1969, p1 Despite failing its scientific agenda, Biosatellite 3 was influential in shaping the life sciences flight experiment program, pointing to the need for centralised management, realistic goals and substantial pre-flight experiment verification testing. The mission objective was to investigate the effect of space flight on

brain The brain is an organ (biology), organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head (cephalization), usually near organs for ...

states, behavioural performance, cardiovascular status, fluid and

electrolyte An electrolyte is a substance that conducts electricity through the movement of ions, but not through the movement of electrons. This includes most soluble Salt (chemistry), salts, acids, and Base (chemistry), bases, dissolved in a polar solven ...

balance, and metabolic state.

Experiments

* Determination of Bone

Mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid substance with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2011): Mi ...

Loss during Prolonged Weightlessness * Effects of Prolonged Space Flight on

Brain The brain is an organ (biology), organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head (cephalization), usually near organs for ...

Functions and Performance

References

1969 in spaceflight Biosatellites Spacecraft which reentered in 1969 Spacecraft launched by Delta rockets Biosatellite program {{US-spacecraft-stub

Experiments

See also

References