At this very moment, a Russian satellite full of geckos is floating around space, and mission control has lost the ability to control it.
The Foton-M4 research satellite launched July 19 with five geckos on board. The plan: To observe their mating activities in the zero-gravity conditions of Earth orbit. Other earthly creatures, including plants and insects, were also placed on board for experiments.
But after the satellite made its first few orbits, it stopped responding to commands from mission control. The equipment on board, however, is still sending scientific data back to Earth, said a spokesman for Russia’s Institute of Biomedical Problems.
Teams of experts are working to re-establish a connection to the satellite, according to the company that built Foton-M. In the meantime, those lizards are being left more or less alone, to do as nature intended for the rest of the 60-day mission.
