At least now she’ll have some interesting stories to share with her grandkids, scientists joke.
Four female mice — called taikonauts in China — flew aboard the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft on October 31, 2025. They spent about two weeks in space and returned to Earth on November 14.
During the flight, scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) released a video of the mice in their cage. “You can see the mice taking turns resting in the shelters inside the cage and occasionally climbing actively on the walls; they are lively and well-adapted,” the team wrote.
The mission aimed to study the effects of microgravity on reproductive function in animals genetically similar to humans.
The expedition suggested that, for mice, there is no conflict between career and motherhood. One of the mice made headlines around the world. On December 10, one of the mice gave birth to nine pups. Three of the pups sadly died shortly after, but that mortality rate is considered normal for this species, according to IFLScience.
Gestation in mice lasts 19 to 21 days.
Why is this mouse experiment important for humans?
This experiment is crucial for long-duration human space missions. One of the key questions scientists still need to answer before colonizing the Moon or Mars is whether space travel poses risks to reproductive health.
As a step toward answering that question, researchers from CAS sent four female mice into space and attempted to induce reproduction shortly thereafter.
“This mission showed that short-term space travel does not impair the reproductive capacity of mice,” said Professor Wang Hongmei, the study’s lead author at CAS.
Monitoring the health of the mother and her pups will continue, as scientists are interested in the long-term effects of space travel. The short lifespan of mice means that a two-week journey can be roughly equivalent to more than a year of human time in space.
Mice have been flown on suborbital flights since 1950. In 1972, five mice even flew on the Apollo 17 mission.
Photo: Openverse
