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Russia Regains Contact With Geckos in Outer Space

The Photon-M craft was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on July 19. Roscosmos

Russia's Mission Control has re-established contact with a research satellite carrying five sexually active geckos into space.

"The connection has been restored, the program has been checked. … We are looking into the reasons that gave rise to the abnormal situation," Oleg Ostapenko, the head of space agency Roscosmos, said Saturday in an online statement.

The space agency said Thursday that it had lost contact with the Photon-M craft less than a week after it was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodome as part of a research mission designed to test the effects of weightlessness on the geckos' reproductive capabilities.

Also aboard the ship are a batch of fruit flies and some mushrooms, part of eight biological research programs that scientists plan to conduct in space.

The satellite, which is on a 60-day flight, is due to re-enter orbit in mid-September.

See also:

Russian Satellite Fail Leaves Geckos and Fruit Flies Lost in Space

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