On a Tuesday in October 1963, a small tuxedo cat from the streets of Paris did something no other feline has ever done. She was strapped into a rocket. She was blasted 157 kilometers into the sky. She felt the weird, stomach-flipping sensation of weightlessness for five minutes before falling back to Earth.
Her name was Félicette.
Honestly, most people have never heard of her. They know Laika, the Soviet dog. They know Ham, the American "astrochimp." But the French space cat? She sort of slipped through the cracks of history for over fifty years.
The Training of C 341
Before she was a hero, she was just "C 341."
Scientists at the Centre d'Enseignement et de Recherches de Médecine Aéronautique (CERMA) didn't want to get attached. They bought 14 cats from a pet dealer—all females—and kept them anonymous. No names. Just numbers.
The training was intense. It wasn't just sitting in a cage. These cats were put into centrifuges to simulate the crushing G-forces of a rocket launch. They were confined to small boxes for hours to see how they’d handle the tight quarters of a space capsule. They even played recordings of deafening rocket engines to see who would freak out.
Most of them didn't make the cut.
C 341 stood out because she was, basically, the chillest cat in the room. While other cats started gaining weight or showing signs of stress, she stayed level-headed. One of the scientists later mentioned that any panic reaction would have messed up the brain signal readings they were trying to collect.
She was the right cat for a very strange job.
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13 Minutes in the Sahara
The launch happened at 8:09 AM on October 18, 1963, at a site in Hammaguir, Algeria.
The rocket was a Véronique AGI 47. It was a liquid-fueled sounding rocket, a descendant of the German V-2. When those engines ignited, C 341 was hit with $9.5g$ of acceleration. Imagine weighing nearly ten times your normal weight for 42 seconds.
The Flight Stats
- Maximum Altitude: 157 kilometers (about 98 miles)
- Total Flight Time: 13 minutes
- Weightlessness: Approximately 5 minutes
- Recovery: Parachute landing followed by a helicopter pickup
The capsule separated from the rocket, soared into the ionosphere, and then began its tumble back down. During the descent, the spinning and vibration actually subjected her to another $7g$.
When the recovery team opened the hatch 13 minutes later, they found her alive. She was shaken, sure, but she was healthy.
The Name Swap: Félix vs. Félicette
Here’s where things get kinda annoying for historians. After the flight was a success, the French media wanted a "face" for the mission. They started calling the cat Félix, after the famous cartoon.
There was just one problem: C 341 was a girl.
The space agency eventually corrected the press, and "Félix" became "Félicette." But the damage was done. For decades, commemorative stamps and history books kept using the male name and even male illustrations. It’s a big reason why her true story was buried for so long. People were looking for a cat that didn't exist.
The Ethical Reality
We have to talk about the part that isn't so "heroic."
Félicette survived the flight, but she didn't get to live out her days in a cozy retirement home. Two months after she landed, scientists euthanized her.
They needed to examine her brain.
Before the flight, she had nine electrodes surgically implanted into her skull. Scientists wanted to see if the cosmic radiation or the weightlessness had caused any permanent neurological damage. They found that her brain was perfectly fine, which was great for science, but a pretty dark end for the cat.
A second cat was launched six days after Félicette, but that rocket exploded on the pad. The French program stopped using cats after that, eventually moving on to monkeys.
Why She Finally Matters Again
For a long time, the only place you'd find Félicette was in obscure footnotes. That changed around 2017.
A guy named Matthew Serge Guy started a Kickstarter because he was tired of the "only cat in space" being forgotten. He raised over $57,000. People from all over the world chipped in.
Today, there is a five-foot-tall bronze statue of Félicette at the International Space University in Strasbourg, France. She’s perched on top of a globe, looking up at the stars. It’s a bit of a late apology from humanity, but it ensures her name won't be lost again.
How to Honor the Legacy
If you’re a fan of space history or just a cat lover, there are a few ways to keep this story alive:
- Check the Stamps: If you collect space memorabilia, look for the 1960s stamps from Chad or Niger. Many of them still say "Félix." Now you know the real story behind them.
- Visit Strasbourg: If you're ever in eastern France, the statue at the International Space University is open to the public in the Pioneer's Hall.
- Support Ethical Science: Félicette’s story is a reminder of how far we’ve come. Modern space agencies like NASA and the ESA have much stricter ethical guidelines regarding animal research than they did in the "Wild West" of the 1960s.
Félicette wasn't a volunteer, but she was a pioneer. She proved that the brain could handle the transition to microgravity without short-circuiting. In the grand, messy history of the Space Race, she’s a reminder that sometimes the most important participants are the ones who never had a choice.
What I can do for you next
I can help you create a detailed timeline of other "forgotten" animal astronauts or write a script for a short documentary-style video about the French space program's early years.