Cosmos 110
Published on Feb 22, 2007 at 1:43 pm.
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Filed under space exploration.
Fourty years ago today, the Soviet Union launched two dogs into space aboard a craft that was to be called Kosmos 110 (usually Cosmos 110 in English). The rocket was an upgraded R-7 booster that launched the Sputniks and Vostoks. The dogs were named Veterok (or sometimes written Verterok), which means “Little Wind”, and Ugolyok (or sometimes written Ugolek), which means “Little Piece of Coal.” The Soviet Union later issued a stamp in their honor, and I’ve reproduced it here.
Cosmos 110 was actually part of the Voskhod program. Voskhod was an outgrowth of the earlier Vostok manned space program. The Voskhods were essentially designed to provide the Soviet Union with a series of “firsts” in space exploration. They were essentially upgraded Vostok capsules.  The Vostoks were not designed for soft landings. Instead, they were fitted with ejection seats to hurl the occupant clear of the craft when it had gotten to sufficiently low altitude. The Voskhods fitted parachutes and braking rockets to the capsule to provide for a soft landing that permitted the occupants to ride the craft all the way to the ground.
Cosmos 47 was the first flight test of the Voskhod hardware. Voskhod 1, in 1964, was the first non-solo manned spaceflight (with three cosmonauts). A cosmonaut performed the first ever space walk on Voskhod 2 in 1965. And then, the dogs Veterok and Ugolyok were launched into space on February 22, 1966. This mission, though part of the Voskhod series of hardware, was not designated as a Voskhod mission, probably because it did not have human passengers aboard.
The Cosmos 110 mission set a record for the longest space mission with a living being, lasting 22 days. In fact, that record still stands as the longest canine space mission. Humans did not reach this lenght of time in space until over eight years later. It was not until the American Skylab 2 mission of 1974 (Skylab 2 was actually the first manned mission. Skylab 1 was simply launching the Skylab space station on an unmanned Saturn V rocket) that humans stayed in space longer than these two dogs. The goal of the mission was to twofold: to achieve a Soviet “first” by setting a record for the longest space mission (other than purely robotic missions), and to study the long term effects of space travel on a body. So, these two dogs played an important role in space exploration.
-Astroprof
