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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.
Shepard served as capsule communicator (CAPCOM) for Glenn's Mercury-Atlas 6 orbital flight, which he had also been considered for, [86] and Carpenter's Mercury-Atlas 7. [87] He was the backup pilot for Cooper for the Mercury-Atlas 9 mission, [ 88 ] nearly replacing Cooper after Cooper flew low over the NASA administration building at Cape ...
Alan Shepard became the first American in space on a suborbital flight three weeks later, on May 5, 1961. [138] John Glenn, the third Mercury astronaut to fly, became the first American to reach orbit on February 20, 1962, but only after the Soviets had launched a second cosmonaut, Gherman Titov , into a day-long flight in August 1961. [ 220 ]
The Mercury Seven were the group of seven astronauts selected to fly spacecraft for Project Mercury. They are also referred to as the Original Seven and Astronaut Group 1. Their names were publicly announced by NASA on April 9, 1959: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton. The ...
The three uncrewed Mercury-Redstone flights exhibited high vibration levels and structural bending in the adapter area, so Alan Shepard's flight included 340 pounds of lead-infused plastic in the adapter section along with additional bracing and stiffeners.
This is a detailed list of human spaceflights from 1961 to 1970, spanning the Soviet Vostok and Voskhod programs, the start of the Soviet Soyuz program, the American Mercury and Gemini programs, and the first lunar landings of the American Apollo program.
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.
Cooper served as capsule communicator (CAPCOM) for NASA's first sub-orbital spaceflight, by Alan Shepard in Mercury-Redstone 3, [25] and Scott Carpenter's orbital flight on Mercury-Atlas 7, [26] and was backup pilot for Wally Schirra in Mercury-Atlas 8. [4]