5.3.2
The following document was updated on 12-08-87 and contains 2118 characters.

PROJECT MERCURY

          Initiated in 1958, completed in 1963, Project
Mercury was the United States' first man-in-space program.
The objectives of the program, which made six manned flights
from 1961 to 1963, were specific:

          * To orbit a manned spacecraft around Earth;

          * To investigate man's ability to function in
            space;

          * To recover both man and spacecraft safely.


THE SPACECRAFT

          The first U.S. spaceship was a cone-shaped one-man
capsule with a cylinder mounted on top. Two meters (6 ft, 10
in) long, 1.9 meters (6 ft, 2 1/2 in) in diameter, a 5.8
meter (19 ft, 2 in) escape tower was fastened to the
cylinder of the capsule. The blunt end was covered with an
ablative heat shield to protect it against the 3000 degree
heat of entry into the atmosphere.
          The Mercury program used two launch vehicles: A
Redstone for the suborbital and an Atlas for the four
orbital flights. Prior to the manned flights, unmanned tests
of the booster and the capsule, carrying a chimpanzee, were
made.
          Each astronaut named his capsule and added the
numeral 7 to denote the teamwork of the original
astronauts.


THE MANNED FLIGHTS

Mercury-Redstone 3
FREEDOM 7
May 5, 1961
Alan B. Shepard, Jr.

15 minutes, 22 seconds
Suborbital flight that successfully put
the first American in space.

Mercury-Redstone 4
LIBERTY BELL 7
July 21, 1961
Virgil I. Grissom


15 minutes, 37 seconds
Also suborbital; successful flight but the
spacecraft sank shortly after splashdown.


Mercury-Atlas 6
FRIENDSHIP 7
February 20, 1962
John H. Glenn, Jr.

04 hours, 55 minutes
Three-orbit flight that placed the first
American into orbit.


Mercury-Atlas 7
AURORA 7
May 24, 1962
M. Scott Carpenter

04 hours, 56 minutes
Confirmed the success of Mercury-Atlas 6
by duplicating flight.


Mercury-Atlas 8
SIGMA 7
October 03, 1962
Walter M. Schirra, Jr.

09 hours, 13 minutes
Six-orbit engineering test flight.

Mercury-Atlas 9
FAITH 7
May 15-16, 1963
L. Gordon Cooper, Jr.

34 hours, 19 minutes
Last Mercury mission; completed 22 orbits
to evaluate effects of one day in space.