Adeli suit life form – before sending a human to space - were undertaken by both, particularly with some dogs by the Soviets and chimps by the US (dogs Laika in November 1957 and then Belka and Strelka on Russian Sputnik 5 in August 1960 and Ham the Chimp or Enos the chimp in January and November 1961, respectively, on US Mercury capsules. The Soviets were generally ahead of the US until the late 1960s (first satellite, first animal in space, first lunar flyby, first human object to reach lunar surface, first pictures of the far side of the moon, first human
Korabl-Sputnik 2 orbit by a Swedish radio station. The spacecraft carried two dogs, Belka and Strelka, 40 mice, two rats and a variety of plants, as well as a television camera, which took images of the dogs. One of its objectives was to intercept the US Echo 1A satellite, which was a passive, nitrogen-filled balloon covered in reflective foil and thus highly visible as it passed overhead. Korabl-Sputnik 2 passed near Echo on the second orbit, and the radio system returned audio of the dogs barking as they saw it out the window. The spacecraft returned to Earth at 06:00:00 UTC on