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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.
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.
Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 5 (LC-5) was a launch site at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida used for various Redstone and Jupiter launches.. It is most well known as the launch site for NASA's 1961 suborbital Mercury-Redstone 3 flight, which made Alan Shepard the first American in space.
Mercury-Redstone 3, Shepard's 15 minute and 28 second flight of the Freedom 7 capsule demonstrated the ability to withstand the high g-forces of launch and atmospheric re-entry. Shepard later went on to fly in the Apollo program and became the only Mercury astronaut to walk on the Moon on Apollo 14 .
He became a naval aviator in 1947, and a test pilot in 1950. He was selected as one of the original NASA Mercury Seven astronauts in 1959, and in May 1961 he made the first crewed Project Mercury flight, Mercury-Redstone 3, in a spacecraft he named Freedom 7. His craft entered space, but was not capable of achieving orbit. He became the second ...
Glenn entering his spacecraft, Friendship 7, prior to the launch of Mercury-Atlas 6 on February 20, 1962. Glenn was the backup pilot for Shepard and Grissom on the first two crewed Project Mercury flights, the sub-orbital missions Mercury-Redstone 3 and Mercury-Redstone 4. [62]
A spacecraft has beamed back some of the best close-up photos ever of Mercury’s north pole. The European and Japanese robotic explorer swooped as close as 183 miles (295 kilometers) above ...
On January 31, 1961, a chimpanzee named Ham flew into space on Mercury-Redstone 2. Another test flight, Mercury-Redstone BD, added to evaluate changes, confirmed the system was ready. [33] Alan B. Shepard, Jr. became the first American in space on May 5, 1961. Mercury-Redstone 3 was a suborbital flight to an altitude of 115 miles and a range of ...