Miss Baker — The Monkey Who Flew First

Cape Canaveral, Florida — 1959 — NASA / Public Domain

May 28, 1959

Launch date

360 mi

Altitude

10,000 mph

Top speed

38 G

Re-entry force

16 min

Total flight

~1 lb

Her weight

The mission

On May 28, 1959, a South American squirrel monkey named Miss Baker was sealed inside a custom biocapsule fitted into the nose cone of an Army Jupiter AM-18 ballistic missile at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. She was approximately one year old and weighed roughly one pound. She had no concept of what was about to happen.

The rocket launched from Launch Complex 26 at 2:35 a.m. and carried Miss Baker and a rhesus monkey named Able on a suborbital trajectory. It reached an altitude of 360 miles and a speed of approximately 10,000 miles per hour. Miss Baker experienced 38 Gs of force during re-entry. Sixteen minutes after launch, the nose cone was recovered from the Atlantic Ocean. Miss Baker was alive and in good health. She ate a large meal shortly after retrieval.

They were the first U.S.-launched animals to survive spaceflight and be recovered alive. The mission collected continuous biomedical data — heart rate, respiration, body temperature, muscle activity — throughout the flight. The data showed no significant adverse physiological effects from acceleration, weightlessness, or re-entry. It fed directly into the planning for human spaceflight. Able died four days later during a procedure to remove a medical electrode. Miss Baker did not.

The Jupiter AM-18 mission was a joint U.S. Army and NASA effort. The Jupiter IRBM (Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile) was being developed for nuclear delivery but was also used as a research vehicle in this period. Launch Complex 26 at Cape Canaveral remains a National Historic Landmark.

Miss Baker's biocapsule was custom-fitted to her dimensions and included monitoring electrodes for continuous telemetry of her vital signs. She was placed in a supine position. The entire capsule, including Miss Baker, was housed inside the nose cone of the rocket alongside Able's capsule.

Her recovery was conducted by the Navy in the South Atlantic. Ground-based tracking stations confirmed recovery of the nose cone. Miss Baker was described by attending physicians as bright-eyed, responsive, and calm.

After the mission

Miss Baker retired from research and was transferred to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. She lived there for the rest of her life — more than twenty-five years. She became one of the most visited and photographed residents of the facility. She had a mate named Norman.

She died on November 29, 1984. She was approximately 27 years old. The average lifespan of a squirrel monkey in captivity is 15–20 years. She outlived that by a significant margin.

Miss Baker was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame. A life-sized bronze statue was commissioned in her honor and placed at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. NASA's History Division maintains primary records of her flight as part of the early animal spaceflight archive.

Her grave at USSRC became a regular destination for visitors. Bananas are often left at the marker. The U.S. Space & Rocket Center maintains the site and it remains publicly accessible.

Where she rests

Miss Baker is buried in front of the Davidson Center for Space Exploration at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The grave marker is modest. Visitors leave bananas.

◈ Burial site coordinates

34.7133° N 86.6544° W

Davidson Center for Space Exploration — U.S. Space & Rocket Center
One Tranquility Base, Huntsville, AL 35805

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About the name

OpenBaker is named after her. She went first, came back fine, and lived another 25 years. That's the whole reason. This page is here to document her story correctly.

Share her story

May 28, 1959. Jupiter AM-18. 360 miles up. 10,000 mph. 38 G on re-entry. Alive at recovery. She was one year old and weighed one pound.

A note on this page

Accuracy

The figures on this page are drawn from NASA History Division records, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, and the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. Some mission parameters — altitude, speed, re-entry force — appear with minor variation across sources. The values here reflect the most commonly cited figures in primary NASA documentation.

Context

Miss Baker was a research subject in a U.S. government space program. She was a squirrel monkey sourced through the bioscience research procurement channels of the era. The mission produced biomedical data that fed directly into the Mercury program planning.

Photo

The photograph above is a NASA image from 1959, in the public domain. It was taken at Cape Canaveral prior to the AM-18 launch. Source: NASA via Wikimedia Commons.

This site

OpenBaker is a software project. This page documents her story. The name is a tribute.