The indoor temperature of Sputnik 2 reached 40 degrees. After three hours of severity, Laika's pulse had dropped, everything indicated the dog's high level of stress (EFE/Archive) Although the ...

The rocket that lifted Laika to space was dubbed Sputnik 2, but that concealed its ominous ... have a litter of her own with a Kennedy family dog. The President referred to the babies as pupniks.

The first one was essentially a stunt, and the second one had an animal payload and thermal problems that killed the canine occupant, [Laika]. Most people don’t remember the later Sputnik missions.

On board Sputnik 2 was Laika, a stray dog, who became the first living creature to orbit the earth in a spacecraft. They did not expect her to survive the mission. They wanted to test what would ...

Laika, the first living dog in orbit aboard Sputnik 2 on November 3, 1957, perished but contributed essential data for future space missions.

Just a month later, on 3 November, the Soviet Union chalked up another iconic first, shooting Laika, the most famous of the Soviet space dogs, into orbit on the considerably larger Sputnik 2.