Russia launched a satellite carrying mice, snails and fish

Russia's Bion-M scientific satellite carries dozens of small animals for scientific research launched into space on April 19 with Soyuz 2.1a boosters from Kazakhstan's Baikonur space airport and has gone into the expected orbit.

Satellites carry many mice, snails, fish and some microorganisms, of which the main object of the study is mice. This is the first time mice fly into space on biological satellites.

Scientists will study changes in gene levels in mice during long flight times.

For mice, 30 days is a long time in the life cycle. So it is possible to observe changes at the cellular and molecular level and make predictions for long human flight.

Representatives of the Institute of Biomedical Affairs of the Russian Academy of Sciences said scientists will observe the activity of the mouse during the flight with the camera in real time.

Bion-M will stay on orbit for about a month, then return to Earth to bring with it the scientific results.

In addition to the Bion-M satellite, Soyuz boosters also put into orbit six small Russian space equipment, three German devices, two American and Korean devices.