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Mercury-Redstone 3, or Freedom 7, was the first United States human spaceflight, on May 5, 1961, piloted by astronaut Alan Shepard. It was the first crewed flight of Project Mercury . The project had the ultimate objective of putting an astronaut into orbit around the Earth and returning him safely.
May 5, 1961: Launch of Freedom 7 At 9:34 a.m., Alan Shepard became the first American in space as Mercury 3 lifted off from Cape Canaveral . Shepard's spacecraft Freedom 7, first of the Mercury program , reached an altitude of 115 miles (185 km) without achieving orbit, and was recovered 19 minutes later by the aircraft carrier USS Lake ...
Shepard in the Freedom 7 capsule before launch . Faced with intense competition from the other astronauts, particularly John Glenn, Shepard quit smoking and adopted Glenn's habit of taking a morning jog. [61] On January 19, 1961, Gilruth informed the seven astronauts that Shepard had been chosen for the first American crewed mission into space ...
12 April 1961 Vostok 1: First crewed spaceflight. Reached Low Earth Orbit (LEO), flew around the Earth one time. 2 Alan Shepard (1) 5 May 1961 Mercury-Redstone 3 : First American crewed spaceflight. Did not reach Earth orbit, maximum altitude: 187 km (116 miles). [1] [2] 3 Gus Grissom (1) 21 July 1961 Mercury-Redstone 4 (Liberty Bell 7)
The Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle, designed for NASA's Project Mercury, was the first American crewed space booster. It was used for six sub-orbital Mercury flights from 1960–1961; culminating with the launch of the first, and 11 weeks later, the second American (and the second and third humans) in space.
The launch of the spacecraft Freedom 7 in a 15-minute sub-orbital spaceflight is seen by 45 million American television viewers. [1] Alan B. Shepard becomes the first U.S. astronaut in space. He was the second person to travel into space, [ 2 ] following the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin .
1961 April 12 USSR First human spaceflight mission (Yuri Gagarin) [2] First orbital flight of a manned vehicle Vostok 1: 1961 May 5 USA First pilot-controlled space flight (Alan Shepard) Freedom 7: 1961 May 19 USSR First planetary flyby , although contact was lost Venera 1 1961 August 6 USSR First crewed mission lasting a full day (Gherman Titov).
May 2 – The Freedom 7 spacecraft is readied for a launch attempt which would have resulted in the first American human spaceflight; it is canceled due to poor weather and rescheduled for May 5. May 5 – Alan Shepard is launched on Freedom 7 on a sub-orbital spaceflight aboard a Mercury-Redstone rocket, and