Mice boldly go, and some newts too ...
Source: AFP |
April 20, 2013, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
A Russian rocket carrying a capsule filled with 45 mice and 15 newts along with other small animals blasted off yesterday on a month-long orbital mission that should pave the way for manned flights to Mars.
Live footage on the Roscosmos space agency website showed the Soyuz lifting off from the Russian-leased Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan.
The Bion-M capsule is also carrying snails and gerbils as well as plants and microflora.
"This is first and foremost to determine how our organisms adapt to weightlessness and to understand what we need to do to make sure that our organisms survive extended flights," the TsSKB-Progress space research center's department head Valery Abrashkin told state television.
The meticulously-prepared experiment will last 30 days and see the capsule parachute to Earth in the central Russian Orenburg region on May 18.
A lab will be deployed on site to test the animals' response to their journey and return.
The mission has been widely publicized as a unique experiment that no other country has pulled off in the past.
The Vesti 24 rolling news station even added a touch of drama by noting that two of the male mice got into a deadly fight during the course of preparations and "as a result, the entire crew (of mice) had to be urgently replaced."
Russia has long set its sights on Mars and is now targeting 2030 as the year in which it could begin creating a base on the moon for flights to the Red Planet.
Live footage on the Roscosmos space agency website showed the Soyuz lifting off from the Russian-leased Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan.
The Bion-M capsule is also carrying snails and gerbils as well as plants and microflora.
"This is first and foremost to determine how our organisms adapt to weightlessness and to understand what we need to do to make sure that our organisms survive extended flights," the TsSKB-Progress space research center's department head Valery Abrashkin told state television.
The meticulously-prepared experiment will last 30 days and see the capsule parachute to Earth in the central Russian Orenburg region on May 18.
A lab will be deployed on site to test the animals' response to their journey and return.
The mission has been widely publicized as a unique experiment that no other country has pulled off in the past.
The Vesti 24 rolling news station even added a touch of drama by noting that two of the male mice got into a deadly fight during the course of preparations and "as a result, the entire crew (of mice) had to be urgently replaced."
Russia has long set its sights on Mars and is now targeting 2030 as the year in which it could begin creating a base on the moon for flights to the Red Planet.
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