14 DAY TRIAL // This April 19, a crew of geckos, gerbils, mice and several other such animals were launched into orbit by Russian scientists. The animals are expected to spend an entire month flying around at a distance of 357 miles (575 kilometers) from our planet's surface.
The scientists who sent these animals in space promise to keep a close eye on their health throughout the entire duration of this experiment.
In fact, it is their hope that these creatures' journey will help them gain a better understanding of how space travel affects living creatures, thus paving the way for future space exploration activities.
More precisely, the researchers wish to figure out how astronauts might be affected by long-term spaceflight.
According to Space, the animals were sent on their journey at 6 a.m. EDT. The Bion-M1 space capsule which is to be their home for the following month accommodates 45 mice, 8 Mongolian gerbils, 15 geckos and several other species.
The space capsule was launched into orbit with the help of a Soyuz 2 rocket, whose lift-off location was Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, in Central Asia.
Researcher Nicole Rayl pointed out the fact that, “The unique nature of this mission is that it's a 30-day mission, so it's longer than a lot of the other animal and biological missions we've flown.”
“The big importance for us is that we get to compare data from this longer mission with better analytical tools that we have today, compared to the missions we've flown in the past that were similar but not exactly the same,” the researcher went on to argue.
What Nicole Rayl is referring to is the fact that, up until now, Russian scientists only made animals spend 15 days tops in orbit.
Thus, one such mission carried out back in 1996 came down to launching monkeys, geckos and amphibians in space and keeping them there for about two weeks.
Once the animal launched in orbit this April 19 return to Earth, they are to be euthanized so that researchers might carry out tests and determine how the journey affected their bodies.