It marks 63 years since the first chimpanzee in Earth orbit

Nov 29. () –

This November 29 marks the 63rd anniversary of the journey of Enos, the second chimpanzee launched into space and first to complete the Earth’s orbitin 1961.

Enos took a complete chimponaut course, with 1,250 hours of training at the University of Kentucky and Holloman Air Force Base. Training was more intense for him than for his predecessor Ham, because Enos was exposed to weightlessness and higher g forces for longer periods of time. His training included psychomotor instruction and airplane flights, Wikipedia reports.

He was taught the maneuvers he had to perform during the flight, through a reward-punishment system, who rewarded him for correct maneuvers and gave him electric shocks for wrong ones. Once launched into space, in a prototype of the Mercury ship, due to operational failures inside the capsule, the system was reversed and Enos was given electric shocks for each successful maneuver he performed.

Instead of altering his behavior, Enos withstood the electrical shocks and made the flight maneuvers he knew were correct. The flight put him into orbit around Earth twice and he landed alive.

Enos’ flight was a dress rehearsal for the launch of Mercury on February 20, 1962, which would make John Glenn the first American to orbit Earth after the successful suborbital space flights of astronauts Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom.

On November 4, 1962, Enos died of dysentery. It is believed that Enos’s remains were dissected like those of Ham, which was extensively studied post-mortem.