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Hidden History: The French Space Cat Felicette [1]
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Date: 2025-01-07
France joined the Space Race in the 1950s, and one of her missions was a test flight involving the first (and so far only) cat to enter space. TRIGGER WARNING: It did not end well for the cat.
"Hidden History" is a diary series that explores forgotten and little-known areas of history.
A French Veronique AGI rocket photo from WikiCommons
In the aftermath of the Second World War, France, under the leadership of General Charles De Gaulle, was eager to reclaim its place as a powerful player on the world stage. This meant rebuilding the shattered French economy as well as its military, and restoring France’s reputation as a leader in scientific research, particularly in the area of aviation and in the new field of rocket science.
It was the Nazis who had led the way in rocketry, with its V-2 ballistic missile. No other nation could match that, and they were all anxious to develop it further. And so France, like Britain, Russia and the United States, made every effort to capture German rocket technology and the scientists and engineers who had designed and built it. In 1946, the French government established the Laboratoire de recherches balistiques et aérodynamiques (“Ballistic and Aerodynamic Research Laboratory”, known by its French initials LRBA) at Veron in Normandy, with the goal of developing a French missile capability, labeled the “Super V-2”.
There were tremendous difficulties. France had played little military role in the defeat of Nazi Germany, and had, rather begrudgingly, only been granted a small “occupation zone” in Germany. Britain and the United States both refused to share any of the V-2 rockets and machinery which they had captured, so France was forced to glean whatever it could find in its occupation zone, and in the end had no choice but to attempt to produce copied V-2 parts on their own—a project which would take several years.
To speed things up, then, Paris decided to begin research at LRBA on its own indigenous rocketry that would not be based on the V-2. In 1948, all attempts to produce copies of the V-2 were dropped, and all of France’s effort was instead concentrated on “Project 4213”, a purely French rocket that could be used to test various technologies. They quickly settled on a design that was dubbed “Veronique”. This was a liquid-fueled rocket that used kerosene and nitric acid, and was steered by a unique arrangement of control wires that were rigged to the four steering fins. With a thrust of just 8,000 pounds, the Veronique, like the V-2, was only capable of suborbital flights, but the French planned to use it for testing new engines and to deliver scientific payloads to high altitudes.
In 1952, the United Nations announced its support for a global scientific endeavor in 1957-1958 to be called the “International Geophysical Year”. This called for all the nations of the world to participate in a joint effort to study the Earth and its geological, meteorological and ecological systems, as a method to promote international harmony and cooperation. There would be expeditions to study the remote polar regions, magnetic surveys of the ocean floor, mapping expeditions to remote areas, and both the US and USSR announced that they would develop an artificial orbiting satellite to study the environment of outer space.
The French Veronique was not capable of reaching orbit, but it could be used to deliver living organisms to a space environment for a brief suborbital flight. The United States had already carried out such experiments in New Mexico by launching living fruit flies aboard modified V-2 rockets, and later American and Soviet flights had carried mice, rats and small monkeys aloft. The French project for the UN’s Geophysical Year, it was decided, would launch a mammal into the space environment in order to study the effects of space flight on the brain. Since the Veronique did not have enough thrust to carry a large payload, it was planned to develop a more powerful version of the rocket, dubbed Veronique AGI (the French initials for “International Geophysical Year”), and to use a housecat as the passenger. Since the brain structure and neurology of the housecat was pretty well understood by French scientists, this would, researchers concluded, serve as a good way to detect any changes that might result from exposure to the space environment.
The new Veronique AGI was 24 feet tall, 2 feet wide, and weighed 3000 pounds, and was modified to use turpentine as fuel instead of kerosene. It could carry a payload of 130 pounds to an altitude of 130 miles. Along with the rocket, the LRBA produced a biological compartment that fit into the nosecone, which could provide oxygen to a live test animal throughout the flight and protect it from the burning temperatures that would be reached upon re-entry. The cone was fitted with a parachute to insure a safe landing, and a radio beacon to allow it to be quickly located and recovered.
The first successful launch of the system, however, did not happen until March 1959, and there were more delays and problems to be solved after that. By this time the Americans and Russians were already launching dogs and rabbits into space, and the French suborbital project was beginning to look a bit out-dated. Nevertheless, it was hoped that a biological test launch would provide data that would be of use for planned future French astronauts. So the program continued, despite ever more delays and issues.
In 1961 the project of training a cat for spaceflight was assigned to the Centre d'enseignement et de recherches de médecine aéronautique (CERMA—“Center for Education and Research in Aeronautical Medicine”). CERMA obtained fourteen female cats from a local pet shop (it was believed that female cats would be calmer and more tractable than males), and assigned laboratory numbers to each of them (they were not given names, which, it was thought, would prevent the staff from becoming “attached” to any of them—after all, everybody knew that this project would ultimately be fatal to the cat even if it was not killed in some sort of launch mishap or equipment failure).
After a series of medical checks and evaluations, including a number of brain scans with electrodes to record their brain waves, the cats began their space training. First, they were confined in a tiny coffin-like container, with just their heads poking out of a tight hole and with various wires attached to them, to accustom them to being inside the cramped confines of the space capsule for long periods of time. Then they were subjected to simulated space flights—first by being bombarded through loudspeakers with the sounds and vibrations of a rocket launch, then by being subjected to accelerations at high g’s in a centrifuge. One of the cats was dropped from the program after its health began to decline. Shortly before the selected launch date, six of the remaining cats were chosen for further testing and training.
During this time, the rocket tests continued. In February 1961 a lab rat named Hector was launched aboard a Veronique AGI and successfully returned to earth. Two more “rat-stronauts” followed in October 1962.
By October 1963, the cat project was ready, and the test subject was selected. This was a black and white female with the designation “C341” who was, whether intentionally or not, the smallest of the group. She underwent some last-minute training and was then transported by air to the French space launch facility at the “Special Vehicles Test Centre” in Algeria.
At 8am on October 18, the Veronique AGI rocket lifted off from the launch pad. C341 was subjected to 9.5 g’s during the launch. The rocket reached a height of almost 100 miles before slowing and falling back to Earth, and underwent about four minutes of weightlessness. On the way back down the nosecone bearing the biological capsule separated from the rocket and plunged towards the ground, now pressing the cat with 7 g’s. At the designated altitude the parachute was deployed, and the capsule floated to Earth and gently hit the ground. Telemetry data from the electrodes attached to her brain showed that, apart from an excited heart-rate during the liftoff, the cat had remained calm through the entire 13-minute flight.
C341 did not get a name, however, until after the launch had concluded successfully and the cat had been recovered safe and sound. To personalize the mission for the public, the press, which was now following the story eagerly, dubbed the space cat “Felix”, after a popular cartoon of the time. CERMA officially adopted the name, but changed it to Felicette since C341 was a female.
While the space kitty survived her mission, however, she did not survive its aftermath. As planned, just two months later, after another battery of medical tests, Felicette was euthanized so that she could be autopsied and her internal organs—especially her brain—could be studied. In the end, the scientists were unable to detect any biological changes due to the spaceflight.
Meanwhile, six days after Felicette’s successful flight, a second cat, this one remaining unnamed, was launched, but died when the Veronique rocket malfunctioned several minutes into the flight. There were no more cosmic kitties after that.
Felicette the Space Cat was mostly forgotten until 2017, when YouTuber Matthew Serge Guy did a video about her and set up a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for an honorary statue. He raised $57,000 from over 1000 donors, and in 2019 sculptor Gill Parker produced a five-foot tall bronze statue of Felicette sitting on a globe, looking up at the stars. The memorial statue was donated to the International Space University in Strasbourg, where it remains on display.
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