Contact re-established with Russian satellite carrying geckos

Sex experiments involving lizards appear back on track after communications with Photon—M satellite are re—established

July 29, 2014 11:40 pm | Updated 11:40 pm IST - Moscow:

Will geckos still get it on in zero gravity? It looked like this and other pressing scientific questions would remain unanswered after Russia’s space agency lost contact last week with a Photon-M satellite carrying five of the lizards for an experiment on weightlessness and sexual behaviour.

But mission control outside Moscow said this weekend it had re-established communications with the satellite and the intrepid gecko sexplorers’ research would continue.

The satellite was launched from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur cosmodrome on July 19 after electrical problems delayed it for three weeks.

When it was left floating in space after the loss of contact, an industry source said the geckos — four females and one male — would likely die of starvation within two-and-a-half months, predicting that the satellite would eventually fall out of orbit. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2014

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