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On Oct. 18, 1963, a cat went to space! Félicette was a French "catstronaut" who became the first and only feline to fly to space. Here's why it mattered.

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While the U.S. and Soviet Union were busy launching primates, dogs and humans, the French decided to join the space race by launching a cat. Félicette, a stray tuxedo cat from the streets of Paris, was a substitute for another cat named Felix, who somehow escaped on launch day.

So Félicette went where no cat had ever gone before. She boarded a French Véronique AG1 rocket and soared 130 miles above the Earth before safely parachuting back down.

Luckily Félicette made it home alive and well, unlike many of the other animal astronauts that flew during the space race.

Félicette survived spaceflight, but was short of this world. She was euthanized two months after her recovery so scientists could study her brain.

On this day in space! Sept. 15, 1968: Russian tortoises (& other critters) launch around the moon on Zond 5 spacecraft in wild first circumlunar flight On this day in space! Aug. 26, 1978: Sigmund Jähn becomes 1st German in space On this day in space! Sept. 12, 1992: NASA astronaut Mae Jemison makes history as the 1st Black woman in space A second cat was launched by the French on Oct. 24, but its flight did not go so well, veering off course. When the cat was found a day later, it was discovered it have died as a result of the journey. From there on, CERMA (Centre d'Enseignement et de Recherches de Médecine Aéronautique) changed its research to flying monkeys.

Félicette may have become a footnote to history had it not been for a crowdfunded effort to raise a statue in her memory nearly 60 years later. The sculpture was unveiled in 2019 at the International Space University in Strasbourg, France. European astronauts Helen Sharman, Paolo Nespoli and Reinhold Ewald were on hand for its reveal.

In 2013, reports surfaced that Iran was planning to send a cat into space as soon as the following year. By all accounts, though, that never happened.

In addition to the memorial statue, Félicette has been memorialized on postage stamps issued by Chad and Comoros, both former French colonies.Want more space history? Check out our full On This Day In Space Story archive and watch our On This Day In Space videos on YouTube.

On this day in space! Oct. 17, 2016: Private Antares rocket returns to flight On this day in space! Oct. 17, 2016: Private Antares rocket returns to flight after catastrophic launch explosion

Hanneke Weitering Social Links Navigation Contributing expert Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos.