Project Mercury
Author(s): DaveBowman2001 ElChristou
Release date:
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States. Its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and bring him back safely, ideally before the Soviet Union (under the Vostok programme). Although it failed to launch the first humans to space, its success laid the groundwork for Project Gemini, which in turn paved the way for Project Apollo to put the first people on the Moon by the end of the 1960s.
NOTES:
- Due to limitations on surviving orbital and suborbital trajectory data, this addon only includes the following missions: MR-3, MR-4, MA-4, MA-5, MA-6, MA-7, MA-8, and MA-9
- Replaces the stock installation of the last three Mercury orbital flights (MA-6 to 9)
- Since almost all Mercury missions lasted only a few hours, refer to the table below and follow this Tutorial on how to view them on Celestia.
| Project Mercury (1959-1963) |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mission | Start | End | |||
| Big Joe 1 | 1959-Sept-9 | ||||
| Mercury-Atlas 1 | 1960-Jul-29 | ||||
| Mercury-Redstone 1 | 1960-Nov-21 | ||||
| Mercury-Redstone 1A | 1960-Dec-19 | ||||
| Mercury-Redstone 2 | 1961-Jan-31 | ||||
| Mercury-Atlas 2 | 1961-Feb-21 | ||||
| Mercury-Redstone BD | 1961-Mar-24 | ||||
| Mercury-Atlas 3 | 1961-Apr-25 | ||||
| Mercury-Redstone 3 (Freedom 7) | 1961-May-5 | ||||
| 14:34 | 14:49 | ||||
| Mercury-Redstone 4 (Liberty Bell 7) | 1961-Jul-21 | ||||
| 12:20 | 12:36 | ||||
| Mercury-Atlas 4 | 1961-Sept-13 | ||||
| 14:04 | 15:53 | ||||
| Mercury-Atlas 5 | 1961-Nov-29 | ||||
| 15:08 | 18:29 | ||||
| Mercury-Atlas 6 (Friendship 7) | 1962-Feb-20 | ||||
| 14:47 | 19:43 | ||||
| Mercury-Atlas 7 (Aurora 7) | 1962-May-24 | ||||
| 12:45 | 17:41 | ||||
| Mercury-Atlas 8 (Sigma 7) | 1962-Oct-3 | ||||
| 12:15 | 21:28 | ||||
| Mercury-Atlas 9 (Faith 7) | 1963-May-15 | 1963-May-16 | |||
| 13:04 | 23:24 | ||||
A Mercury-Redstone rocket and a Mercury-Atlas rocket
Ham (left) and Enos (right), the chimps that flew during Project Mercury
NASA Astronaut Group 1, a.k.a the "Mercury Seven". (Top) Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, Gordon Cooper. (Front) Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter. Of the group, only Slayton never flew during the program
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