2000s
The last flight of Columbia in 2003 carried silkworms, Garden Orb spiders, carpenter bees, harvester ants, and Japanese killifish. Nematodes (C. elegans) from one experiment were found still alive in the debris after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.
C. elegans are also part of experiments aboard the International Space Station as well as research using quail eggs.
Earlier shuttle missions included grade school, junior high and high school projects; some of these included ants, stick insect eggs and brine shrimp cysts. Other science missions included gypsy moth eggs.
On July 12, 2006, Bigelow Aerospace launched their Genesis I inflatable space module, containing many small items such as toys and simple experiments chosen by company employees that would be observed via camera. These items included insects, perhaps making it the first private flight to launch animals into space. Included were Madagascar hissing cockroaches and Mexican jumping beans — seeds containing live larvae of the moth Cydia deshaisiana. On June 28, 2007, Bigelow launched Genesis II, a near-twin to Genesis I. This spacecraft also carried the Madagascar hissing cockroaches and added South African flat rock scorpions (Hadogenes troglodytes) and seed-harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex californicus).
In September, 2007, during the European Space Agency's FOTON-M3 mission, tardigrades, also known as water-bears, were able to survive 10 days of exposure to open-space with only their natural protection.
In November 2009, STS-129 took painted lady and monarch butterfly larva into space for a school experiment as well as thousands of C. elegans roundworms for long-term weight loss studies.
Read more about this topic: Animals In Space