The nicely and carefully written question Have any animals that have been studied onboard the ISS come back alive? has an affirmative answer that applies to the space shuttle. Now that return to Earth comes in capsule form, have animals ever returned live to the surface — by design?
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9$\begingroup$ Not counting homo sapiens animals, I assume? $\endgroup$– Organic MarbleCommented Feb 25, 2017 at 19:06
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1$\begingroup$ @OrganicMarble I have heard that at least in the early days, the astronaut ecperience may have sometimes felt like being an experimental subject, but in this case I mean the ones riding as cargo, not with seats. :) $\endgroup$– uhohCommented Feb 25, 2017 at 23:02
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1$\begingroup$ Did you see the commentary about the zebrafish on the linked question? $\endgroup$– called2voyage ♦Commented Mar 1, 2017 at 15:41
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1$\begingroup$ @uhoh I agree it needs to be made into an actual answer, but I wanted to make sure that you saw the information that technically answers your question. $\endgroup$– called2voyage ♦Commented Mar 1, 2017 at 15:54
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1$\begingroup$ @uhoh But haven't you ruled out that interpretation by your very first comment above, where you restricted the question to animals "riding as cargo"? $\endgroup$– TooTeaCommented Apr 23, 2020 at 7:11
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3 Answers
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Yes.
A nice example would be the recent splashdown of the first SpaceX Dragon capsule to have been re-used after a previous visit to the ISS.
See for example Spaceflight Now's July 3, 2017 article Dragon capsule returns home with animals and station equipment:
Items stowed for Dragon’s return included live mice from an experiment to investigate the effectiveness of a therapeutic drug to promote bone growth, combating atrophy in astronauts in space and osteoporosis patients on Earth. The mice will be euthanized and examined after landing.
below: "The Dragon spacecraft was lifted onto a boat for a trip back to port in Southern California following Monday’s predawn splashdown. Credit: SpaceX" From here.
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8$\begingroup$ "The mice will be euthanized" tough break after such a long journey for a mouse! $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 19, 2017 at 19:30
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3$\begingroup$ @SarahBailey I couldn't think of a good way to point out the irony, "tough break" does it very nicely, thanks! $\endgroup$– uhohCommented Jul 20, 2017 at 2:22
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Other answers focused on Rodent Research, which is long running series of experiments which often have live rodents returned to Earth. One such experiment was Rodent Research 6.
Other examples include:
- Live fruit flies that hatched in space were returned to Earth on SpaceX-11.
- Live tadpoles were flown and returned to Earth on SpaceX-19.
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Rodent research is a big science objective for NASA. NASA and JAXA send rodents via Dragon and Cygnus capsules very frequently, and they are returned to Earth via Dragon re-entry.
Here's a 40+ page review:
And from this NASA.gov mission page: Rodent Research - Active Mission please see:
Rodent Research-5
The topic of study on this mission was bone tissue loss – a challenge for the health of astronauts, as well as for people on Earth suffering from osteoporosis. For the experiment, a group of mice was launched to the space station in June 2017. Half of them returned to Earth one month later, while the other half remained in space for a full two months. This allowed the researchers – a team based at University of California, Los Angeles – to study the effects of a potential treatment for bone loss, and how the body readapts to Earth conditions after an extended stay in microgravity.
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3$\begingroup$ This is also what's called a link-only answer. Even if the links worked, there is no answer here, one would have to go off-site to get any real answer. Can you quote some short sections of each link that answer the question so that this becomes a stand-alone answer? Thanks! $\endgroup$– uhohCommented Apr 23, 2020 at 20:23
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1$\begingroup$ @OrganicMarble links fixed (it seems they were given more permanent homes?) $\endgroup$– uhohCommented Feb 27 at 0:39