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Rhesus monkey launch test. US space researchers and engineers holding a strapped-in female rhesus monkey (named Able) ready to place in a capsule (rig
Rhesus monkey launch test. US space researchers and engineers holding a strapped-in female rhesus monkey (named Able) ready to place in a capsule (right) for pre-flight tests. Able, along with a squirrel monkey called Baker, achieved suborbital space flight on 28 May 1959. They were launched with a Jupiter missile (mission AM-18) to an altitude of 480 kilometres in a flight lasting 16 minutes. Both monkeys survived the flight, but Able died four days later from a reaction to anaesthetic during surgery. Able and Baker were the first monkeys to be successfully recovered alive from space. Photographed on 18 May 1959.
Size: 3345px × 2610px
Photo credit: © NASA/MARSHALL SPACE FLIGHT CENTER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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