Environment

Space Bat Mystery: What Happened to NASA Discovery's Stow Away?

by Tina Kells | March 23, 2009 at 08:03 am

284 views | 3 Recommendations | 2 comments

When NASA launched the space shuttle Discovery on March 15, 2009 a little stow away went along for the ride. A small bat had attached itself to Discovery's external fuel tank and when the shuttle blasted off on its latest mission the bat was photographed clinging to the craft.

Dubbed the Space Bat, the stow away rodent became an Internet star overnight and now his fans are wondering about his fate. What could have happened to that little Space Bat?

Without a little space suit it is unlikely he survived the push through Earth's atmosphere but NASA says that there is no way to know for sure what fate befell Discovery's Space Rat.

NASA says its fate will always be a mystery, because the umbilical camera that takes pictures of the external tank after separation was broken.

But the bat is now a pop legend -- the subject of a quiz on "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" on National Public Radio.

Mission Control put a cartoon of the bat perched on the edge of the shuttle's robotic arm captioned "Orbital Bat Sensing System -- the world's first sonar based thermal protection imaging system."

5 See all footage | View Slideshow

Share: email story | add to any | | facebook | stumbleupon

recommend This comment thread is now closed

Yuliya Talmazan

at 09:19 on March 23rd, 2009

I was wondering the same thing, but I am inclined to believe that little bat did not have a chance to escape to safety in time. I heard it was injured too.

Dipl. Biol. B.-Markus Schuller (not verified)

at 05:48 on April 6th, 2009

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I just stumbled over your article about the bat that had attached to the space shuttle on March 15th 2009. In the article you call it "the stow away rodent". As biologist and bat researcher, I have to advice you to correct the article, because bats are NOT rodents. They are simply bats (Chiroptera) is an own mammalian order (as rodents (Rodentia) are). The english translation of Chiroptera would be something like "Hand-Flyer". But they are simply called "bats" in English. Together with the Fruitbats or flying foxes the small bats form the order of "Chiroptera". Please, please, please correct this, because it gives me the creeps reading such a wrong assignment of an animal to the wrong order - and surely not only me, but all people who are interested in theese animals in the slightest of ways.

Sincerely yours,

B.-Markus Schuller