Biosatellite 3


Biosatellite 3, also known as abbreviated Biosat 3 and as Biosatellite D, was a third and last artificial satellite unmanned U.S. belonging to Biosatellite program for biological research.
The intent had been to fly a 6 kg male pig-tailed monkey named "Bonny" in Earth-orbit for 30 days. However, after only 8.8 days in orbit, the mission was terminated because of the subject's deteriorating health. High development costs were a strong incentive for maximising the scientific return from the mission. Because of this, the scientific goals had become exceedingly ambitious over time, and a great many measurements were conducted on the single research subject flown. Although the mission was highly successful from a technical standpoint, the science results were apparently compromised. Bonny, dubbed an "astromonk" by the American press died on 8 July, one day after the biological capsule's successful recovery from the Pacific.
Despite the seeming failure of the mission's scientific agenda, Biosatellite 3 was influential in shaping the life sciences flight experiment program, pointing to the need for centralised management, realistic goals and substantial pre-flight experiment verification testing. The mission objective was to investigate the effect of space flight on brain states, behavioural performance, cardiovascular status, fluid and electrolyte balance, and metabolic state.

Experiments