Two monkeys Able, an American-born rhesus monkey, and Baker, a squirrel monkey from Peru, launched aboard a US Air Force Jupiter IRBM rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, May 28, 1959. They rode in the nose cone achieving an altitude of 360 miles and reached a distance of 1699 miles down from the launch site. They withstood forces thirty-eight times the normal pull of gravity and were weightless for about 9 minutes.
They were the first monkeys to be launched into space and survive. Able died four days after the flight from the anesthesia, while undergoing surgery to remove an infected medical electrode. Baker lived until November 1984 when she passed away in Huntsville, Alabama.
