Meet the New Russian Cosmonauts: Animals Blasted into Space on Soyuz Rocket

Noah's ark may be getting a run for its money. Like the Biblical story of old, animals are now being placed on a vessel that will ferry them across vast distances. Instead of a boat, though, it's a spacecraft. Russia has launched a crew of geckos, mice, gerbils and other species into space in order to begin a month-long experiment to study how space travel affects animals. The mission is designed so that the animals will return to Earth alive.

The animals were launched into orbit at 6 a.m. EDT today atop a Russian Soyuz 2 rocket. They were placed inside the Bion-M1 space capsule, which is filled with enclosures for the numerous species of animals. They will spend about a month in space, flying 357 miles above the Earth while scientists on the ground monitor the health of the capsule's residents.

The mission itself is the first dedicated to launching animals into space in 17 years. The last mission carried rhesus monkeys, geckos and amphibians into orbit for a mere 15 days in 1996. It allowed scientists to understand the impact that space could have on human astronauts.

Yet this 30-day mission could drive that understanding even further. It's longer than a lot of other animal and biological missions that have been flown in the past. Scientists plan to compare data from this new mission with the better analytical tools that are available to them today. In addition, there will be more researchers dedicated to this mission.

"We often have very targeted scientific experiments where we have one investigator looking at, say 'cardiovascular system function,'" said Nicole Rayl, project manager for NASA's portion of the mission, in an interview with Fox News. "This is different because we have nine investigators total looking at a whole organism approach to spaceflight. That's a very exciting development for us, that we're able to bring so many investigators to the table to really maximize the scientific return from this mission."

Once the animal astronauts land back on Earth, the scientists plan to examine them and run tests. While they will survive the landing, though, the scientists will have to humanely euthanize the creatures in order to get the data that they need.