Yes, multiple monkeys were sent to space, starting in 1948. The United States launched the first primate into space on a captured German V-2 rocket, and over the following decades, more than 30 primates flew on missions conducted by the U.S., the Soviet Union, France, and Iran. These flights were designed to test whether living creatures could survive the extreme forces of launch, the weightlessness of space, and the violent return to Earth.
The First Monkey in Space
On June 11, 1948, a rhesus monkey named Albert I launched from White Sands, New Mexico aboard a V-2 Blossom rocket. The flight was part of early U.S. military research into high-altitude survival, and Albert I did not survive. Almost exactly a year later, on June 14, 1949, Albert II flew on a second V-2 rocket and reached an altitude of 83 miles, crossing the internationally recognized boundary of space at roughly 62 miles (the Kármán line). Albert II became the first primate to officially reach space, but he also died when the parachute system failed on reentry.
Several more monkeys followed in what became known as the Albert series, with Albert III, IV, V, and VI all launching on various rockets through the early 1950s. Most of these flights ended in failure, either from rocket malfunctions or parachute problems during descent. The program demonstrated how dangerous early spaceflight was, not just for the animals but for the entire concept of sending living beings beyond the atmosphere.
Able and Baker: The First to Survive
The breakthrough came on May 28, 1959, when two monkeys named Able and Baker flew aboard a Jupiter rocket and returned alive. Able was a rhesus monkey and Baker was a squirrel monkey, and together they reached an altitude of about 360 miles while traveling at speeds over 10,000 miles per hour. They experienced roughly nine minutes of weightlessness before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean. Both were recovered in good condition.
Able died just days later during a surgery to remove an electrode that had been implanted before the flight. Baker, however, lived until 1984, spending her remaining years at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Their mission proved that primates could endure the physical stresses of spaceflight and return safely, a critical stepping stone toward human missions.
Ham the Chimpanzee and Project Mercury
Perhaps the most famous primate spaceflight involved Ham, a chimpanzee launched on January 31, 1961, just months before astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space. Ham’s flight was a final test of NASA’s Mercury capsule, and unlike earlier monkey flights, his mission required him to actually perform tasks during the trip.
A team of behavioral scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research trained Ham to operate a system of lights and levers. He was instructed to flip at least one lever every 20 seconds in response to light cues, with a mild electrical shock to his foot if he missed. The point was to determine whether a living creature could still think and respond to commands while experiencing the forces of spaceflight. Ham performed his trained tasks successfully throughout the mission and was found in good health after recovery, though he showed signs of fatigue and dehydration. His successful flight gave NASA the confidence to proceed with crewed Mercury missions.
Ham lived until 1983 at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and later at the North Carolina Zoo.
Soviet and International Primate Flights
The Soviet Union also sent primates to space, though it relied more heavily on dogs in the early years of its program. Starting in the 1980s, the Soviets launched a series of Bion satellite missions that carried pairs of rhesus monkeys into orbit for up to two weeks at a time. These were true orbital flights, not brief suborbital hops, and researchers used them to study how extended weightlessness affected bone density, muscle mass, heart function, and behavior. Several of these missions were conducted in collaboration with American and European scientists.
France sent two pig-tailed macaques on suborbital flights in 1967, and as recently as 2013, Iran claimed to have launched a monkey into space and recovered it safely, though some outside observers questioned the details.
Why Monkeys Were Chosen
Scientists chose primates for space research because their bodies are far more similar to human bodies than those of smaller animals like mice or fruit flies. Primate cardiovascular systems, skeletal structures, and brain function closely mirror our own, making them the best available stand-ins for predicting how humans would respond to launch forces, radiation, and weightlessness. Data from other animals could answer basic survival questions, but only primates could provide the kind of detailed physiological and behavioral information NASA needed before risking a human crew.
The practice became increasingly controversial over the decades. By the 1990s, public opposition to using primates in space research had grown significantly, and NASA phased out primate flights. No U.S. space program has launched a monkey or ape since the 1980s Bion collaborations. The data gathered from those earlier missions, however, directly shaped the life support systems, seat designs, and reentry protocols that kept the first human astronauts alive.