Félicette (officially c341) is a female cat that went into space on a French véronique rocket on October 18, 1963.
Its skull is implanted with electrodes to allow scientists to monitor its neural activity during flight. It was launched nearly 100 miles above Earth, experienced a weightless state of about five minutes, and then returned to the surface via parachute. The flight lasted 15 minutes, and when the researcher opened the hatch, Félicette was still alive.
Two months later, in order to study the effects of spaceflight on its physical condition, the scientists decided to euthanize Félicette.
Subsequently, unlike the dogs sent into space in the Soviet Union and the chimpanzees sent into space in the United States, the first cat sent into space gradually became forgotten. In the 1990s, three former French colonies issued cat portrait-themed stamps to celebrate its story even mistaking its name, giving it the name of a boy named felix. Fortunately, its heroic deeds have been clarified and reported.
Through online fundraising, on December 18, 2019, the memorial statue of Félicette was finally unveiled at the International Space University in Strasbourg, France, with its keen cat eyes staring at the sky, which once flew higher than any cat in the world.