Mercury Redstone 1
Mission dates | |||
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Mission: | Mercury Redstone 1 (MR-1) | ||
COSPAR-ID : | MERCR1 | ||
Spacecraft: | Serial number 2 | ||
Launcher: | Redstone Mercury | ||
Begin: | November 21, 1960, 14:00 UTC | ||
Starting place: | LC-5 , Cape Canaveral | ||
Landing: | November 21, 1960, 14:00 UTC | ||
Flight duration: | 2s | ||
Earth orbits: | suborbital flight | ||
Apogee : | 10 centimeters | ||
Maximum acceleration: | 1 g | ||
◄ Before / After ► | |||
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With Mercury-Redstone 1 (MR-1) was on 21 November 1960, the first test flight as part of the Mercury program with a fully assembled Redstone - rocket and a Mercury spacecraft take place.
Start attempt
The rocket was fully assembled on the launch pad and the countdown was normal until the main engines started. The engine fired, but it immediately failed again because a cable had not separated correctly from the rocket. The rocket had risen about 10 cm (4 inches ) from the ground and fell back into the support structure. The rescue tower then started, just because that was the next step in the planned program of the flight. Three seconds later, first the smaller release parachute and then the main parachute flew out of the top of the Mercury landing capsule , which then hung from the rocket.
Analyzes
"All we did was launch the rescue tower." later said a NASA official, very disappointed.
Despite this failure, the rescue system proved to be successful and valuable results could be gained from this breakdown.
The replacement mission, Mercury-Redstone 1A (MR-1A), ran smoothly on December 19, 1960 using the same space capsule (s / n 2) . The spacecraft reached an altitude of about 210 km (131 miles ) and was recovered from the Atlantic by a helicopter 15 minutes later after landing .
Web links
- NASA: The Four-Inch Flight (English)
- YouTube: Mercury-Redstone 1 Launch failure (MR-1) Video of the false start.