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MERCURY PROJECT
 
GEMINI PROJECT
 
APOLLO PROJECT
 
Step on the moon front page
 
 
Mercury Project
 
Project Mercury began on October 7,1958 one year and three days after Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1. Mercury was the United States first manned space program. The program made up of six manned flights from 1961 to 1963. The objectives were : 1) to otbit a manned spacecraft around the earth. 2) to investigate man's ability to function in space. 3) to recover both man and spacecraft safely .However ,three weeks after Alan Shepard's First U.S. human suborbital flight, on May 5,1961 and only 15 minutes, President John F.Kennedy announced the goal of landing a man on the MOON before the end of the decade.
        The Mercury capsule was a tiny one person craft barly large enough to hold the occupant. The capsule was two meters (6 ft 10 in.)long, 1.9 meters (6 ft 2.5 in.)in diameter, 5.8 meters (19 ft 2 in.) escape tower fastened to a cylinder mounted on top.The blunt end was cover with an ablative heat shield to protect it against the 3000 degrees heat when entry into the atmosphere. The main conical portion of the spacecraft contained the crew,life support system, power,and controls system . The cylidrical section housed parachute and landing system. The top most section had antenna for RF transmission. The first two missions were lifted by the Redstone. The rest of the missions used the Atlas, a lot more powerfull than Redstone.
 
Manned space flight for Mercury Project
Dated
Mission
Crew
Spacecraft
Launch Vehicle
Duration
Milestone
May 5 , 1961
Mercury-Redstone 3
Alan Shepard
Freedom 7
Redstone
15 min.28 sec.
suborbital flight that successfully put the first american in space.
 
Dated
Mission
Crew
Spacecraft
Launch Vehicle
Duration
Milestone
July 21 , 1961
Mercury-Redstone 4
Gus Grissom
Liberty Bell 7
Redstone
15 min.37 sec.
Successful suborbital flight that tested the new spacecraft configuration.
 
Dated
Mission
Crew
Spacecraft
Launch Vehicle
Duration
Milestone
February 20 , 1962
Mercury-atlas 6
John Glenn
Freindship 7
Atlas
4 hrs.55 min.23 sec.
Three-orbit flight that placed the first american into orbit.
 
Dated
Mission
Crew
Spacecraft
Launch Vehicle
Duration
Milestone
May 24 , 1962
Mercury-Atlas 7
Scott Carpenter
Aurora 7
Atlas
4 hrs.56 min.5 sec.
confirmed the success of the Mercury-Atlas 6 by duplicated flight.
 
Dated
Mission
Crew
Spacecraft
Launch Vehicle
Duration
Milestone
October 3 , 1962
Mercury-Atlas 8
Walter Schirra
Sigma 7
Atlas
9 hrs.13 min.11 sec.
Six-orbit engineering test flight.
 
Dated
Mission
Crew
Spacecraft
Launch Vehicle
Duration
Milestone
May 15-16 , 1963
Mercury-Atlas 9
Gordon Cooper
Faith 7
Atlas
34 hrs.19 min.49 sec.
Last Mercury mission,Completed 22 orbits to evaluate effects of one day in space.
 
^ Mercury 4 launching
^ Mercury's astronauts
^ JohnGlenn and Mercury 6
^ Mercury 8 and Walter schirra
^ Mercury 8 Splashdown
^ Mercury 9 launching
^ Gemini 9 Splashdown
^ Himalaya mountain, view from Mercury 9
 

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