Albert I (monkey)

The Hermes program, beginning in 1944, had the stated objective of testing missiles, in particular reverse-engineering the German V-2 rocket.

[4] The turbine had burnt out prematurely at 57.5 seconds, causing the rocket to fall short of the Kármán line, reaching an altitude of 39 miles (62 km).

[3] The parachute also failed to deploy, meaning that if Albert had survived the capsule conditions, he would have died on impact anyway.

[4] This meant that the launch had produced no useful data regarding the functioning of biological life in space, and was therefore deemed a failure.

However, Albert II also died, due to a parachute failure, but the recorder indicated that he had survived the flight until that point.