Mercury- Redstone 1A (MR-1A) was launched on December 19, 1960 from LC-5 at Cape Canaveral,

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. The mission objectives of this uncrewed suborbital flight were to qualify the spacecraft for space flight and qualify the system for an upcoming primate suborbital flight. The spacecraft tested its instrumentation, posigrade rockets,

retrorocket A retrorocket (short for ''retrograde rocket'') is a rocket engine providing thrust opposing the motion of a vehicle, thereby causing it to decelerate. They have mostly been used in spacecraft, with more limited use in short-runway aircraft land ...

s and recovery system. The mission was completely successful. The Mercury capsule reached an altitude of and a range of . The launch vehicle reached a slightly higher velocity than expected - . The Mercury spacecraft was recovered from the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

by recovery helicopters about 15 minutes after landing. Serial numbers: Mercury Spacecraft #2 was reflown on MR-1A, together with the escape tower from Capsule #8 and the antenna fairing from Capsule #10. Redstone MRLV-3 was used. The flight time was 15 minutes and 45 seconds.

Mercury-Redstone suborbital flight events

Current location

Mercury spacecraft #2, used in both the Mercury-Redstone 1 and Mercury-Redstone 1A missions, was displayed at the

NASA Ames Exploration Center The NASA Gift Shop in Silicon Valley (also called the NASA Ames Visitor Center) is a visitor center at the entrance of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. The center has the following exhibits: * The Mercury-Redstone 1A caps ...

Moffett Federal Airfield Moffett Federal Airfield , also known as Moffett Field, is a joint civil-military airport located in an unincorporated part of Santa Clara County, California, United States, between northern Mountain View and northern Sunnyvale. On November 10 ...

, near Mountain View,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

until 2022 when it was relocated to the

Cradle of Aviation Museum The Cradle of Aviation Museum is an aerospace museum located in Garden City, New York on Long Island, established to commemorate Long Island's part in the history of aviation. It is located on land once part of Mitchel Air Force Base which, to ...

in Garden City, NY.

Notes

References

This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury - NASA SP-4201

External links

"Space Progress: 'Man-In-Space' Capsule Recovery Successful"
a December 22, 1960

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briefly covering the Mercury-Redstone 1A mission. Courtesy of the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

.
Mercury spacecraft #2 display page on "A Field Guide to American Spacecraft" website.
{{Project Mercury 1960 in spaceflight Project Mercury 1960 in the United States Suborbital spaceflight

Mercury-Redstone suborbital flight events

Current location

Notes

See also

References

External links