Courtesy National Air and Space Museum Mercury FRIENDSHIP 7

Project Mercury was the United States  first man-in-space program.  It was started on October 7, 1958.  The Missions were completed in 1963.  Project Mercury had six manned flights.

                                    The goals of Project Mercury were the following:
                                        - To orbit a manned spacecraft around the earth
                                        - To investigate man's ability to function in space
                                        - To recover both man and spacecraft safely
 

                    The first U.S. Spacecraft was cone shaped with a cylinder mounted on top.
                    One man could fit in it.  This spacecraft was 2 meters long, 1.9 meters in
                    diameter, and had a 5.8 meter escape tunnel attached to the cylinder.
 

                    The Mercury Program released two launch vehicles.  Redstone was the
                    vehicle for suborbital flights and Atlas was the vehicle for orbital flights.
 
 

                                                      THE 6 MANNED FLIGHTS

                        1) On May 5, 1961 Alan B. Shepard, Jr. in the Mercury-Redstone 3
                            FREEDOM 7 was the first American in Space.  This suborbital flight
                            that lasted for 15 minutes and 28 seconds.

                        2) On July 21, 1961 Virgil I. Grisson in the Mercury-Redston 4 LIBERTY
                            BELL 7 was the second American in Space.  This also was a suborbital
                            flight and it lasted for 15 minutes and 28 seconds.  But the spacecraft
                            sank just after splashdown.
 
 

Courtesy of National Air and Space Museum               John Glenn

3) On February 20, 1962 John H. Glenn, Jr. in the Mercury-Atlas 6 FRIENDSHIP 7 was the first American in orbit.  This flight took Glenn around the earth three times.  It lasted 4 hours, 55 minutes, and 23 seconds.

                        4) On May 24, 1962 M. Scott Carpenter in the Mercury-Atlas 7 AURORA
                            7 duplicated the FRIENDSHIP's flight.  This flight confirmed that people
                            could go into orbit.  It lasted 4 hours, 56 minutes, and 5 seconds.

                       5) On October 3, 1962 Walter M. Schirra, Jr in the Mercury-Atlas 8 SIGMA
                            7 orbited the earth six times.  This flight was an engineering test flight and
                            lasted 9 hours, 13 minutes, and 11 seconds.

                       6) On May 15-16, 1963 L. Gordon Cooper, Jr. in the Mercury-Atlas 9 FAITH
                            7 flew the last Mercury mission.  This flight circled the earth 22 times in 34
                            hours, 19 minutes, and 49 seconds.  It was flown to evaluate the effects on
                            a person of one day in space.

a SCEN103 Project