Redstone MRLV | Mercury-Redstone 1
Launch Failure
L - -- : -- : -- : --
Instantaneous launch window.
Launch Window
Nov. 21, 1960, 2 p.m. - Nov. 21, 1960, 2 p.m.
Instantaneous launch window.
Nov. 21, 1960, 2 p.m. - Nov. 21, 1960, 2 p.m.
Mercury-Redstone 1 (MR-1) was the first Mercury-Redstone uncrewed flight test in Project Mercury and the first attempt to launch a Mercury spacecraft with the Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle. Intended to be an uncrewed sub-orbital spaceflight, it was launched on November 21, 1960 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The launch failed in abnormal fashion: immediately after the Mercury-Redstone rocket started to move, it shut itself down and settled back on the pad, after which the capsule jettisoned its escape rocket and deployed its recovery parachutes. The failure has been referred to as the "four-inch flight", for the approximate distance traveled by the launch vehicle.
The Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle, designed for NASA's Project Mercury, was the first American manned space booster. It was used for six sub-orbital Mercury flights from 1960–61; culminating with the launch of the first, and 11 weeks later, the second American (and the second and third humans) in space. The four subsequent Mercury human spaceflights used the more powerful Atlas booster to enter low Earth orbit. A member of the Redstone rocket family, it was derived from the U.S. Army's Redstone ballistic missile and the first stage of the related Jupiter-C launch vehicle; but to human-rate it, the structure and systems were modified to improve safety and reliability.
Mercury No.2 is the Mercury capsule used for the Mercury-Redsone 1 mission which failed on launch.
Mercury DetailsIn July 1959, NASA chose the Redstone missile as the basis for the Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle to be used for suborbital test flights of the Project Mercury spacecraft. Three unmanned MRLV launch attempts were made between November 1960 and March 1961, two of which were successful. The MRLV successfully launched the chimpanzee Ham, and astronauts Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom on three suborbital flights in January, May and July 1961, respectively.
INFO WIKIEighth batch of satellites for a reconnaissance satellite constellation built by SpaceX and Northrop Grumman for the National Reconnaissance Office t…
A batch of 23 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Last of five batches of five satellites for the French Kinéis IoT constellation designed to operate with 25 nanosatellites of 30 kg each.
Carried 8 satellites to 535 km high SSO: * Yunyao-1 #55-60 * AIRSAT-06 & 07
Note: Payload identity and Cosmos series numbering not confirmed. The Strela (Russian: Стрела) are Soviet, then Russian, military space telecommun…
A batch of 23 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Dedicated rideshare flight to a sun-synchronous orbit with dozens of small microsatellites and nanosatellites for commercial and government customers.
Commercial Earth observation satellite built by CAST for China Siwei Survey and Mapping Technology Co. Ltd, with 0.5 m resolution over 9 image wavele…
Synthetic aperture radar Earth observation satellite for Japanese Earth imaging company iQPS.
SpaceX Crew-10 is the tenth crewed operational flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Cre…