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The Mercury Seven

The Mercury Seven

The Mercury Seven was the group of seven Mercury astronauts picked in April 1959. They are also referred to as the Original Seven and Astronaut Group 1.
- M. Scott Carpenter - Mercury Atlas 7
- L. Gordon Cooper - Mercury 9, Gemini 5
- John H. Glenn - Mercury Atlas 6, STS-95
- Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom - Mercury 4, Gemini 3, Apollo 1
- Walter M. Schirra - Mercury 8, Gemini 6A, Apollo 7
- Alan B. Shepard - Freedom 7, Apollo 14
- Donald K. "Deke" Slayton - Apollo-Soyuz Test Project

Project Mercury

Project Mercury was the United States first successful manned spaceflight program. It ran from 1959 through 1963 with the goal of putting a man in orbit around the Earth. Early planning and research was carried out by NACA, while the program was officially carried out by the newly created NASA. The name Mercury comes from the Roman god (it is also the name of the innermost planet of the solar system). The Mercury program cost $1.5 billion in 1994 dollars. See NASA Budget.

Spacecraft

__NOTOC__ Mercury spacecraft (also called a capsule or space capsule) were very small one-man vehicles; it was said that the Mercury spacecraft were not ridden, they were worn. Only 1.7 cubic meters in volume, the Mercury capsule was barely big enough to include its pilot. Inside were 120 controls: 55 electrical switches, 30 fuses and 35 mechanical levers. The spacecraft was designed by Max Faget and NASA's Space Task Group. During the launch phase of the mission, the Mercury spacecraft and astronaut were protected from launch vehicle failures by the Launch Escape System. The LES consisted of a solid fuel, 52,000 lbf (231 kN) thrust rocket mounted on a tower above the spacecraft. In the event of a launch abort, the LES fired for 1 second, pulling the Mercury spacecraft away from a defective launch vehicle. The spacecraft would then descend on its parachute recovery system. After booster engine cutoff (BECO), the LES was no longer needed and was separated from the spacecraft by a solid fuel, 800 lbf (3.6 kN) thrust jettison rocket, that fired for 1.5 seconds. To separate the Mercury spacecraft from the launch vehicle, the spacecraft fired three small solid fuel, 400 lbf (1.8 kN) thrust rockets for 1 second. These rockets are called the Posigrade rockets. The spacecraft had only attitude control thrusters. After orbit insertion and before retrofire they could not change their orbit. The spacecraft had three sets of control jets for each axis (yaw, pitch and roll), supplied from two separate fuel tanks. An automatic set of high and low powered jets and a set of manual jets, fueled from either the automatic tank or the manual tank. The pilot could use any one of the three thruster systems and fuel them from either of the two fuel tanks to provide spacecraft attitude control. The Mercury spacecraft were designed to be totally controllable from the ground in the event that the space environment impaired the pilot's ability to function. The spacecraft had three solid fuel, 1000 lbf (4.5 kN) thrust retrorockets that fired for 10 seconds each. One was sufficient to return the spacecraft to earth if the other two failed. The first retro was fired, five seconds later the second was fired (while the first was still firing). Five seconds after that, the third retro fires (while the second retro is still firing). This is called ripple firing. There was a small metal flap at the nose of the spacecraft called the "spoiler". If the spacecraft started to reenter nose first (another stable reentry attitude for the capsule), airflow over the "spoiler" would flip the spacecraft around to the proper, heatshield first reentry attitude. Suborbital Mercury capsules encountered lower reentry temperatures and used beryllium heat-sink heat shields. Orbital missions encountered much higher atmospheric friction and temperatures during reentry and used ablative shields. NASA ordered 20 production spacecraft, numbered 1 through 20, from McDonnell Aircraft Company, St. Louis, Missouri. Five of the twenty spacecraft were not flown. They were, Spacecraft #10, 12, 15, 17, and 19. Two unmanned spacecraft were destroyed during flights. They were Spacecraft #3 and #4. Spacecraft #11 sank and was recovered from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean after 38 years. Some spacecraft were modified after initial production (refurbished after launch abort, modified for longer missions, etc) and received a letter designation after their number, examples 2B, 15B. Some spacecraft were modified twice, example, spacecraft 15 became 15A and then 15B. A number of boilerplate spacecraft (mockup/prototype/replica spacecraft, made from non-flight materials or lacking production spacecraft systems and/or hardware) were also made by NASA and McDonnell Aircraft and used in numerous tests, including launches.

Boosters

ablative The Mercury program used three boosters: Little Joe, Redstone, and Atlas. Little Joe was used to test the escape tower and abort procedures. Redstone was used for suborbital flights, and Atlas for orbital ones. Starting in October, 1958, Jupiter missiles were also considered as suborbital launch vehicles for the Mercury program, but were cut from the program in July, 1959 due to budget constraints. The Atlas boosters required extra strengthening in order to handle the increased weight of the Mercury capsules beyond that of the nuclear warheads they were designed to carry. Little Joe was a solid-propellant booster designed specially for the Mercury program. The Titan missile was also considered for use for later Mercury missions, however the Mercury program was terminated before these missions were flown. The Titan was used for the Gemini program which followed Mercury

Astronauts

Gemini program The first Americans to venture into space were drawn from a group of 110 military pilots chosen for their flight test experience and because they met certain physical requirements. Seven of those 110 became astronauts in April 1959. Six of the seven flew Mercury missions (Deke Slayton was removed from flight status due to a heart condition). Beginning with Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 flight, the astronauts named their own spacecraft, and all added 7 to the name to acknowledge the teamwork of their fellow astronauts Mercury had seven prime astronauts, all former military test pilots, known as the Mercury 7. NASA announced the selection of these astronauts on April 9, 1959.
- M. Scott Carpenter (1925-)
- L. Gordon Cooper, Jr. (1927-2004)
- John H. Glenn. Jr. (1921-)
(first American to orbit the earth)
- Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom (1926-1967)
- Walter M. Schirra, Jr. (1923-)
- Alan B. Shepard, Jr. (1923-1998)
(first American in space)
- Donald K. "Deke" Slayton (1924-1993)
(grounded in 1962 due to irregular heartbeat, reinstated in 1972 and later flew on Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975)

Flights

The program included 20 robotic launches. Not all of these were intended to reach space and not all were successful in completing their objectives. The fifth flight in 1959 launched a monkey named Sam (a rhesus monkey named after the Air Force School of Aviation Medicine) into space. Other non-human space-farers were Miss Sam (a rhesus monkey), Ham and Enos, both chimpanzees. The Mercury program used the following launch vehicles:
- Little Joe - Suborbital, robotic, and primate flights. Launch escape system tests
- Redstone - Suborbital robotic, primate and piloted orbital flights.
- Atlas - Suborbital robotic, robotic, primate, and piloted orbital flights.

Robotic

- Mercury-Jupiter - Cancelled in July, 1959 - Proposed suborbital launch vehicle for Mercury. Not flown.
- Little Joe 1 - August 21, 1959 - test of launch escape system during flight
- Big Joe 1 - September 9, 1959 - test of heat shield and Atlas / spacecraft interface
- Little Joe 6 - October 4, 1959 - Test of capsule aerodynamics and integrity
- Little Joe 1A - November 4, 1959 - test of launch escape system during flight
- Little Joe 2 - December 4, 1959 - carried Sam the monkey to 85 kilometres in altitude
- Little Joe 1B - January 21, 1960 - carried Miss Sam the monkey to 9.3 statute miles (15 kilometres) in altitude
- Beach Abort - May 9, 1960 - test of the Off-The-Pad abort system
- Mercury-Atlas 1 - July 29, 1960 - first flight of Mercury spacecraft and Atlas Booster
- Little Joe 5 - November 8, 1960 - first flight of a production Mercury spacecraft
- Mercury-Redstone 1 - November 21, 1960 - Launched 4 inches (100 mm). Settled back on pad due to electrical malfunction
- Mercury-Redstone 1A - December 19, 1960 - first flight of Mercury spacecraft and Redstone booster
- Mercury-Redstone 2 - January 31, 1961 - carried Ham the Chimpanzee on suborbital flight
- Mercury-Atlas 2 - February 21, 1961 - test of Mercury spacecraft and Atlas Booster
- Little Joe 5A - March 18, 1961 - test of the launch escape system during the most severe conditions of a launch
- Mercury-Redstone BD - March 24, 1961 - Redstone Booster Development - test flight
- Mercury-Atlas 3 - April 25, 1961 - test of Mercury spacecraft and Atlas Booster
- Little Joe 5B - April 28, 1961 - test of the launch escape system during the most severe conditions of a launch
- Mercury-Atlas 4 - September 13, 1961 - test of Mercury spacecraft and Atlas Booster
- Mercury-Scout 1 - November 1, 1961 - test of Mercury tracking network
- Mercury-Atlas 5 - November 29, 1961 - carried Enos the Chimpanzee on a two orbit flight

Primate flights

- Little Joe 2 - December 4, 1959 - carried Sam the monkey to 85 kilometres in altitude
- Little Joe 1B - January 21, 1960 - carried Miss Sam the monkey to 9.3 statute miles (15 kilometres) in altitude
- Mercury-Redstone 2 - January 31, 1961 - carried Ham the Chimpanzee on suborbital flight
- Mercury-Atlas 5 - November 29, 1961 - carried Enos the Chimpanzee on a two orbit flight

Piloted

Suborbital

- Mercury-Redstone 3 (Freedom 7) - 5 May 1961 - Alan Shepard
- Mercury-Redstone 4 (Liberty Bell 7) - 21 July 1961 - Gus Grissom

Orbital

- Mercury Atlas 6 (Friendship 7) - 20 February 1962 - John Glenn
- Mercury-Atlas 7 (Aurora 7) - 24 May 1962 - Scott Carpenter (replaced Deke Slayton)
- Mercury-Atlas 8 (Sigma 7) - 3 October 1962 - Wally Schirra
- Mercury-Atlas 9 (Faith 7) - 15 May 1963 - Gordon Cooper
- Mercury-Atlas 10 (Freedom 7-II) - October 1963 - Cancelled June 13, 1963 1963 1963

Piloted Mercury launches

1963

Mercury Flight insignias

Flight patches are available to the public that purport to be patches from various Mercury missions. In reality, these patches were designed long after the Mercury program ended by private entrepreneurs. When genuine flight patches were created by crews in the Gemini program, this caused a public demand for Mercury flight patches, which was filled by these private entrepreneurs. The only patches the Mercury astronauts wore were the NASA logo and a name tag. Each manned Mercury spacecraft, however, was decorated with a flight insignia. These are the genuine Mercury flight insignias. They were approved by the Mercury astronauts and painted on their spacecraft. Each flight insignia is illustrated in the photo above.

Follow-on programs

Miscellaneous

The Mercury astronauts trained, in part, at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Virginia, under Flight Surgeon William K. Douglas and Keith G. Lindell (COL, USAF). Several bridges throughout the city bear the name of the Mercury astronauts, and the main route in the city is named Mercury Boulevard, honoring the Mercury program. The names of five of the Mercury astronauts are also commemorated in the popular 1960s TV show Thunderbirds. In the series, Jeff Tracy, the founder of the fictional International Rescue organisation, is a millionaire ex-astronaut who has named his five sons -- Scott, Virgil, Alan, John and Gordon -- after the real-life Mercury astronauts.

External links

- [http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/history/mercury/mercury.htm The Mercury Project (Kennedy Space Center)]
- [http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4001/contents.htm Project Mercury A Chronology (Prepared by James M. Grimwood)]
- [http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4003/cover.htm Space Medicine In Project Mercury By Mae Mills Link]
- [http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/diagrams/mercury.html Project Mercury Drawings and Technical Diagrams]
- [http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/diagrams/diagrams.htm Technical Diagrams and Drawings]
- [http://www.geocities.com/atlas_missile/mercury.htm Mercury-Atlas Diagrams]
- [http://projectmercury5.moonport.org Project Mercury Simulator for the PC (Orbiter)]
- [http://youarego.com Project Mercury Simulator for the Mac]
- [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19670028606_1967028606.pdf The Mercury Redstone Project (PDF) December 1964]
- [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19740076527_1974076527.pdf Project Mercury familiarization manual (PDF) November 1961]
- [http://www.ibiblio.org/mscorbit/document.html Various PDFs of historical Mercury documents including familiarization manuals.] Category:Manned spacecraft Category:Human spaceflight programmes
- ja:マーキュリー計画

M. Scott Carpenter

Malcolm Scott Carpenter (born May 1, 1925) was one of the original seven astronauts selected in 1959 for Project Mercury. Created by the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Project Mercury was the United States' answer to the Soviet Union's space program. This rivalry eventually became the space race — a contest between the two superpowers to land the first men on the moon and return them safely to earth. Carpenter was the second American to orbit the earth and the fourth American in space, following Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, and John Glenn. Born in Boulder, Colorado, Carpenter moved to New York City with his parents (Marion Scott Carpenter and Florence [née Noxon] Carpenter) for the first two years of his life. (His father had been awarded a postdoctoral research post at Columbia University.) In the summer of 1927, young Carpenter returned to Boulder with his mother, then ill with tuberculosis. There he was raised by his maternal grandparents in the family home at the corner of Aurora Avenue and Seventh Street. He lived in Boulder until his graduation from Boulder High School in the class of 1943. Upon graduation, he was accepted into the U.S. Navy's aviation cadet program (V12a), where he served until the end of World War II. He returned to Boulder in November 1945 to study aeronautical engineering at the University Of Colorado. At the end on his senior year, he missed the final examination in heat transfer, leaving him one requirement short of a degree. After his single Mercury flight, the University granted him the degree on grounds that, "His subsequent training as an Astronaut has more than made up for the deficiency in the subject of heat transfer." (See Carpenter's account in his biography, For Spacious Skies, p. 97.) On the eve of the Korean war, Carpenter was recruited by the USN's Direct Procurement Program (DPP), and reported to Pensacola Naval Air Station (N.A.S.) in the fall of 1949 for Pre-flight and Primary flight training. He earned his wings on April 19, 1951, in Corpus Christi, Texas. During his first tour of duty, on his first deployment, Carpenter flew Lockheed P2V Neptunes for Patrol Squadron Six on reconnaissance and ASW (anti-submarine warfare) missions during the Korean War. Forward-based in Adak, Carpenter then flew surveillance missions along the Soviet Russian and Chinese coasts during his second deployment; promoted to PPC (patrol plane commander) for his third deployment, Lt. (j.g.) Carpenter was based with his squadron in Guam. Carpenter was then appointed to the Navy Test Pilot School, class 13, at Patuxent River N.A.S. in 1954. He continued at Patuxent until 1957, working as a test pilot in the Electronics Test Division; his next tour of duty was spent in Monterey, Calif., at the Navy Line School. In 1958, Carpenter was named Air Intelligence Officer for the USS Hornet. USS Hornet After being chosen for Project Mercury in 1959, Carpenter served as backup pilot for John Glenn, who flew the first U.S. orbital mission aboard Friendship 7; when Deke Slayton was withdrawn on medical grounds from Project Mercury's second manned orbital flight, Carpenter was assigned to replace him. He flew into space on May 24, 1962, atop the Mercury-Atlas 7 rocket for a three-orbit science mission that lasted nearly five hours. His Aurora 7 spacecraft attained a maximum altitude of 164 miles and an orbital velocity of 17,532 miles per hour. Working through a jammed flight plan and five onboard experiments, Carpenter helped among other things to identify the mysterious 'fire fly' particles of frozen liquid around the craft, first observed by John Glenn. Carpenter was the first American astronaut to eat solid food in space. A balky control stick, redesigned for later Mercury missions, meant that fuel consumption was a problem throughout his flight. A malfunctioning automatic control system, at retrofire, forced Carpenter to manually control his reentry; a misalignment in yaw and decelerating thrusters (another malfunction) resulted in a 250-mile overshoot. Carpenter was located in his life raft, safe and in good health, forty minutes after splashdown, and recovered by the USS Intrepid. Just who was to blame for the overshoot is a matter of dispute. On the one hand, Chris Kraft, leader of the team of flight controllers at the Cape, argues in a hard-hitting memoir (Flight: My Life in Mission Control, 2002) that Carpenter was to blame. Kraft's position is taken up with less enthusiasm by others in the flight controller community (see, for example, Gene Kranz). Yet at the time, the mission was considered a resounding success, in large part because the flight of Aurora 7 confirmed that backup systems—human pilots—could succeed when automatic systems fail.[http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4201/ch13-9.htm]] Others note that fuel consumption and other aspects of the vehicle operation were as much, if not more, the responsibility of the ground controllers, that hardware malfunctions went unidentified, and that organizational tensions between the astronaut office and the flight controller office—tensions that NASA did not resolve until the later Gemini and Apollo programs—may account for much of the criticism of Carpenter's performance during his flight. Carpenter responds at length and in detail to the criticism of his spaceflight in his 2003 autobiography. In July 1964, in Bermuda, Carpenter sustained a grounding injury from a motorbike accident while on leave from NASA to train for the Navy's Sealab project; he never flew in space again. In 1965, for Sealab II, he spent 28 days living on the ocean floor off the coast of California. He returned to work at NASA as Executive Assistant to the Director of the Manned Spaceflight Center, then returned to the Navy's Deep Submergence Systems Project in 1967, based in Bethesda, Maryland, as a Director of Aquanaut Operations for Sealab III. Carpenter retired from the Navy in 1969, after which he founded Sear Sciences, Inc., a corporation for developing programs for utilizing ocean resources and improving environmental health. In 1962, Scott Carpenter Park in Boulder, Colorado, was named in his honor.

Books

- For Spacious Skies: The Uncommon Journey of a Mercury Astronaut," ISBN 0151004676 or the revised paperback edition ISBN 0451211057 - Carpenter's biography, co-written with his daughter; describes his childhood, his experiences as a naval aviator, a Mercury astronaut, including an account of what went wrong, and right, on the flight of Aurora 7.
External links

- [http://www11.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/carpenter-ms.html NASA Biography] Carpenter,Scott Carpenter,Scott Carpenter,Scott Carpenter,Scott

Mercury Atlas 7

:Alternate meaning: Mercury Seven Mercury Seven

Crew

- Scott Carpenter (flew on Mercury 7) The original prime crew for Mercury Atlas-7 was Deke Slayton, however Slayton was controversially removed from all flight crew availability after the discovery of cardiac arrhythmia during a training run in the g-loading centrifuge.

Backup Crew

- Walter M. Schirra

Mission Parameters

- Mass: 2975 lb (1350 kg)
- Perigee: 154 km
- Apogee: 260 km
- Inclination: 32.5°
- Period: 88.3 min

Mission Highlights

Mercury 7 was a Mercury program American manned space mission launched May 24, 1962. The Mercury capsule was named "Aurora 7" and made three earth orbits, piloted by astronaut Scott Carpenter. A targeting mishap during reentry took the spacecraft 250 miles (about 400 km) off course, delaying recovery of Carpenter and the craft. The mission used Mercury spacecraft #18 and Atlas #107-D. Mercury spacecraft #18 was delivered to Cape Canaveral on November 15, 1961. Atlas #107-D was rolled out of the Convair factory in San Diego, CA on February 25, 1962. It was delivered to Cape Canaveral, FL on March 6, 1962. Mercury spacecraft #18 — Aurora 7, used in the Mercury-Atlas 7 mission, is currently displayed at the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame, Titusville, Florida. [http://aesp.nasa.okstate.edu/fieldguide/pages/mercury/ma-7.html Mercury spacecraft #18 Aurora 7 display page on A Field Guide to American Spacecraft website.] The focus of Carpenter's five-hour Aurora 7 mission was on science. The full flight plan included the first study of liquids in weightlessness, Earth photography and an unsuccessful attempt to observe a flare fired from the ground. At dawn of the third and final orbit, Carpenter inadvertently bumped his hand against the inside wall of the cabin and solved a mystery from the previous flight. The resulting bright shower of particles outside the capsule-what Glenn had called "fireflies"-turned out to be ice particles shaken loose from the capsule's exterior. Like Glenn, Carpenter circled the Earth three times. Total time weightless 4 h 39 min 32 s. The performance of the Mercury spacecraft and Atlas launch vehicle was excellent in nearly every respect. All primary mission objectives were achieved. The single mission critical malfunction which occurred involved a failure in the spacecraft pitch horizon scanner, a component of the automatic control system. This anomaly was adequately compensated for by the pilot in subsequent in-flight operations so that the success of the mission was not compromised. A modification of the spacecraft control-system thrust units were effective. Cabin and pressure-suit temperatures were high but not intolerable. Some uncertainties in the data telemetered from the bioinstrumentation prevailed at times during the flight; however, associated information was available which indicated continued well-being of the astronaut. Equipment was included in the spacecraft which provided valuable scientific information; notably that regarding liquid behavior in a weightless state, identification of the airglow layer observed by Astronaut Glenn, and photography of terrestrial features and meteorological phenomena. An experiment which was to provide atmospheric drag and color visibility data in space through deployment of an inflatable sphere was partially successful. The flight further qualified the Mercury spacecraft systems for manned orbital operations and provided evidence for progressing into missions of extended duration and consequently more demanding systems requirements. Partly because he had been distracted watching the fireflies and partly because of his busy schedule, and a malfunction of the automatic alignment system, he overshot his planned reentry mark, and splashed down 402 kilometers off target.

Mercury-Atlas Three Orbit Flight Events

External links

- [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19620004691_1962004691.pdf Results of the second u.s. manned orbital space flight], May 24, 1962 (Aurora 7) NASA report - (PDF format)
- [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19990026158_1999028570.pdf This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury - NASA report (PDF format)]
- [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19630011968_1963011968.pdf Chronology of Project Mercury - NASA report (PDF format)]

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Category:Human spaceflights Category:Mercury program

Mercury 9

Crew

- Gordon Cooper (flew on Mercury 9 & Gemini 5)

Backup Crew

- Alan B. Shepard

Mission Parameters

- Mass: 3,000 lb (1,360 kg)
- Perigee: 161 km
- Apogee: 267 km
- Inclination: 32.5°
- Period: 88.5 min

Mission Highlights

Mercury 9 was the last U.S. Mercury spaceflight manned space mission, launched on May 15, 1963 from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The capsule was named Faith 7 and it completed 22 Earth orbits piloted by astronaut Gordon Cooper. The Atlas rocket was #130-D, and the Mercury spacecraft was #20. The flight of Sigma 7 had been so nearly perfect that some at NASA thought America should quit while it was ahead and make MA-8 the last Mercury mission, and not risk the chance of future disaster. They thought NASA had pushed the first-generation Mercury hardware far enough, and taking more chances on another longer mission were not warranted. They thought it was time to move on to the Gemini program. Manned Spacecraft Center officials, however, believed that the Mercury team should be given the chance to test man in space for a full day. In September, 1962, NASA concluded negotiations with McDonnell to modify four Mercury spacecraft (#12, #15, #17 and #20) to a configuration that supported a one-day mission. In November, 1962, Gordon Cooper was chosen to pilot the MA-9 mission and Alan Shepard was picked as backup. On April 22, 1963 Atlas 130-D and Faith 7 - S/C #20 were stacked on the launch pad at Launch Complex 14. Because MA-9 would orbit over nearly every part of the world from 32.5 degrees north to 32.5 degrees south, a total of 28 ships, 171 aircraft, and 18,000 servicemen were assigned to support the mission. When Cooper boarded Faith 7 at 6:36 am on the morning of May 14, he found a little gift that had been left for him. Alan Shepard had left behind a "plumbers helper" (suction-cup handled device that unclogs drains) as a joke. Instructions on the handle said, "Remove Before Launch". The gift didn't make the trip. Neither did Cooper that day. Various problems with radar in Bermuda and the diesel engine that rolls back the gantry caused the launch to be cancelled until May 15. At 8:00:13, May 15, 1963, Faith 7 was launched from Launch Complex 14. At T+ 60-seconds, the Atlas started its pitch program. Shortly afterward, MA-9 passed through Max-Q. At T+ 2-minutes and 14-seconds Cooper felt BECO (Booster Engine Cutoff) and staging. The two Atlas booster engines had been left behind. The Launch Escape Tower was then jettisoned. At T+ 3-minutes the cabin pressure sealed at 5.5 lb/in² (38 kPa). Cooper reported, "Faith 7 is all go." At about T+ 5-minutes was SECO (Sustainer Engine Cutoff) and Faith 7 entered orbit at 17,547 mile/h (7,844 m/s). After the spacecraft separated and turned around to orbit attitude, Cooper watched his Atlas booster lag behind and tumble for about eight minutes. Over Zanzibar on the first orbit, he learned that the orbital parameters were good enough for at least 20 orbits. As the spacecraft passed over Guaymas, Mexico still on the first orbit, capsule communicator Gus Grissom told Cooper the ground computers said he was "go for seven orbits". At the start of the third orbit, Cooper checked his list of 11 experiments that were on his schedule. He got ready to eject a six inch (152 mm) diameter sphere, equipped with xenon strobe lights from the nose of the spacecraft. This experiment was designed to test his ability to spot and track a flashing beacon in orbit. At T+ 3-hours 25-minutes Cooper flipped the switch and heard and felt the beacon leave the spacecraft. He tried to see the flashing light in the approaching dusk and on the nightside pass, but failed to do so. On the fourth orbit, he did spot the beacon and saw it pulsing. Cooper reported to Scott Carpenter on Kauai, Hawaii, "I was with the little rascal all night." He also spotted the beacon on his fifth and sixth orbits. Also on the sixth orbit, at about T+ 9-hours, Cooper set up cameras, adjusted the spacecraft attitude and set switches to deploy a tethered balloon from the nose of the spacecraft. It was a 30 inch (762 mm) Mylar® balloon painted fluorescent orange, inflated with nitrogen and attached to a 100 ft (30 m) nylon line from the antenna canister. A strain gauge in the antenna canister would measure differences in atmospheric drag between the 100 mile (160 km) perigee and the 160 mile (260 km) apogee. Cooper tried several times to eject the balloon, but it failed to eject. Cooper passed Schirra's orbital record on the seventh orbit while he was engaged in radiation experiments. After T+ 10-hours Zanzibar told Cooper the flight was go for 17 orbits. Cooper was orbiting the earth every 88-minutes 45-seconds at an inclination of 32.55 degrees to the equator. His scheduled rest period was during orbits 9 through 13. He had a dinner of powdered roast beef mush and some water, took pictures of Asia and reported the spacecraft condition. Cooper was not sleepy and during orbit 9 took some of the best photos made during his flight. He took pictures of the Tibetan highlands and of the Himalayas. Himalayas He said he could see roads, rivers, small villages, and even individual houses if the lighting and background conditions were right. Cooper slept intermittently the next six hours, during orbits 10 through 13. He woke from time to time and took more pictures, taped status reports and kept adjusting his spacesuit temperature control which kept getting too hot or too cold. On his fourteenth orbit, Cooper took an assessment of the spacecraft condition. The oxygen supply was sufficient. The peroxide fuel for attitude control was 69 percent in the automatic tank and 95 percent in the manual one. On the fifteenth orbit he spent most of the time calibrating equipment and synchronizing clocks. When he entered night on the sixteenth orbit, Cooper pitched the spacecraft to slowly follow the plane of the ecliptic. Through the spacecraft window he viewed the zodiacal light and night airglow layer. He took pictures of these two "dim light" phenomena from Zanzibar, across the earths nightside, to Canton Island. The pictures were later found to have been overexposed, but they still contained valuable data. At the start of the 17th orbit while crossing Cape Canaveral, Florida, Cooper broadcast slow scan black and white television pictures to the ground. The picture showed a ghostly image of the astronaut. In the murky picture, a helmet and hoses could be seen, it was the first time an American astronaut had sent back television from space. On the 17th and 18th orbits he took infrared weather photos and moonset Earth-limb pictures. He also resumed geiger counter measurements of radiation. He sang during orbits 18 and 19, and marveled at the greenery of Earth. It was nearing T+ 30-hours since liftoff. On the nineteenth orbit, the first sign of trouble appeared when the spacecraft 0.05 g (0.5 m/s²) light came on. The spacecraft was not reentering, it was a faulty indicator. On the 20th orbit, Cooper lost all attitude readings. The 21st orbit saw a short-circuit occur in the bus bar serving the 250 volt main inverter. This left the automatic stabilization and control system without electric power. On the 21st orbit John Glenn onboard the Coastal Sentry near Kyushu, Japan, helped Cooper prepare a revised checklist for retrofire. Due to the system malfunctions, many of the steps would have to be done manually. Only Hawaii and Zanzibar were in radio range on this last orbit, but communications were good. Cooper noted that the carbon dioxide level was rising in the cabin and in his spacesuit. He told Carpenter as he passed over Zanzibar, "Things are beginning to stack up a little." Throughout the problems, Cooper remained cool, calm and collected. At the end of the 21st orbit, Cooper again contacted Glenn on the Coastal Sentry. He reported the spacecraft was in retro attitude and holding manually. The checklist was complete. Glenn gave a 10 second countdown to retrofire. Cooper kept the spacecraft aligned at a 34 degree pitchdown angle and manually fired the retrorockets on "Mark!". Fifteen minutes later the Faith 7 landed just four miles (6 km) from the prime recovery ship, the carrier USS Kearsarge. The landing spot was just 130 km south east of Midway Island, in the Pacific Ocean. This is south west of Pearl and Hermes Reef. According to NASA SP-45 "Mercury Project Summary Including Results of the Fourth Manned Orbital Flight", Faith 7 landed 70 nautical miles (130 km) southeast of Midway Island. This would be near . Splashdown was at T+ 34-hours 19-minutes 49-seconds after liftoff. The spacecraft tipped over in the water momentarily, then righted itself. Helicopters dropped rescue swimmers and relayed Cooper's request of an Air Force officer, for permission to be hoisted aboard the Navy's carrier. Permission was granted, 40 minutes later the explosive hatch blew open on the deck of the Kearsarge. Cooper stepped out of the Faith 7 to a warm greeting. Again at the end of the MA-9 mission, there was another debate to fly one more Mercury flight, Mercury-Atlas 10 (MA-10). It was proposed as a 3 day, 48 orbit mission to be flown by Alan Shepard in October, 1963. In the end, NASA officials decided it was time to move on to Project Gemini and MA-10 never flew. The Mercury program had fulfilled all of its goals. Mercury spacecraft # 20 - Faith 7, used in the Mercury-Atlas 9 mission, is currently displayed at the NASA Space Center Houston, Houston, TX.

Reference

- [http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4201/cover.htm This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury - NASA SP-4201]
- [http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/sc-query.html NASA NSSDC Master Catalog]

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Gemini: Gemini 1 (unmanned)
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Mercury: Mercury 10 (cancelled)

External link

- [http://aesp.nasa.okstate.edu/fieldguide/pages/mercury/ma-9.html Field Guide to American Spacecraft] Pictures of Faith 7 at the Johnson Space Center, TX museum. Category:Human spaceflights Category:Mercury program

Gemini 5

Gemini 5 (officially Gemini V) was a 1965 manned spaceflight in NASA's Gemini program. It was the 3rd manned Gemini flight, the 11th manned American flight and the 19th spaceflight of all time (includes X-15 flights over 100 km).

Crew

- Gordon Cooper (flew on Mercury 9 & Gemini 5), Command Pilot
- Pete Conrad (flew on Gemini 5, Gemini 11, Apollo 12, & Skylab 2), Pilot

Backup crew

- Neil A. Armstrong, Command Pilot
- Elliot M. See, Jr., Pilot

Mission parameters

- Mass: 3,605 kg
- Perigee: 162 km
- Apogee: 350.1 km
- Inclination: 32.61°
- Period: 89.59 min
- REP (Radar Evaluation Pod) sub-satellite: On August 21, 1965 at 16:07:15 UTC, the REP was released into orbit from the Gemini 5 spacecraft.

Objectives

Gemini V doubled the space-flight record to eight days, thanks to new fuel cells that generated enough electricity to power longer missions. Cooper and Conrad were to have made a practice rendezvous with a "pod" deployed from the spacecraft, but problems with the electricity supply forced a switch to a simpler "phantom rendezvous," whereby the Gemini maneuvered to a predetermined position in space. Mercury veteran Gordon Cooper was the first person to travel on orbital missions twice. He and Conrad took high-resolution photographs for the Defense Department, but problems with the fuel cells and maneuvering system forced the cancellation of several other experiments. The astronauts found themselves marking time in orbit, and Conrad later lamented that he had not brought along a book. On-board medical tests, however, continued to show the feasibility of longer flights. Gemini 5 doubled the length of the Gemini 4 mission. It was solely a long duration flight, aiming for eight days, the length of time that it would take to fly a mission to the moon. There would also be an attempt to rendezvous with a pod released from the spacecraft. This was also the first mission to carry fuel cells that would be pivotal in any Apollo flight.

Flight

The launch was perfect except for a few seconds of pogo. This was when the rocket had lateral movement. This was measured at +0.38 g (3.7 m/s²) during stage 1 flight, exceeding the permitted +0.25 g (2.5 m/s²) for a total of about 13 seconds. The cause was traced to a pre-launch procedure and pogo never affected another Gemini flight. The initial orbit was 163 by 349 kilometres. The first major event on the mission was the ejection of the rendezvous pod at 2 hours and 13 minutes into the flight. The radar showed that the pod was moving a relative speed of two meters per second. While out of radio contact with the ground they found that the pressure in the fuel cell had dropped to from 850 to 65 lbf/in² (5,860 to 450 kPa) 4 hours and 22 minutes into the flight. This was still above the 22.2 lbf/in² (153 kPa) minimum but Cooper decided to shut it down. Without power they would be unable to rendezvous with the pod and it could mean a premature end to the mission. Tests on the ground found that it was possible for the fuel cell to work, even with low oxygen pressure. However with the fuel cell off, they would only be able to stay in orbit for a day and still have enough battery power for reentry. It was decided to turn the fuel cells back on and test them by using equipment that required more and more power. These showed that the fuel cells were stable and the crew could continue the mission. In the meantime, Buzz Aldrin had been working out an alternative rendezvous test. He had a PhD in orbital mechanics and worked out a scheme where the crew could rendezvous with a "point in space". The crew became cold as they drifted. Even with the coolant pipes in the suits turned off and the airflow on low they still shivered. There was also the annoying fact that stars slowly drifting by the window were disorientating, so the crew put covers on the windows. As with Gemini 4 they had trouble sleeping with the alternate sleep periods. They still had little rest when they decided to take their sleep periods together. The phantom rendezvous came on the third day. It went perfectly even though it was the first precision maneuver on a spaceflight. They tried four maneuvers—apogee adjust, phase adjust, plane change, and coelliptical maneuver—using the orbit attitude and maneuvering system (OAMS). The ground realised that there was a small problem during the next day. The fuel cell produced water, though this was not suitable for drinking as it was too acidic. It was therefore stored on a tank on board. The problem was that this was the same tank as the drinking water, with the two separated by a bladder wall. The problem was that the fuel cell was producing 20% more discharge than expected. However it was soon discovered that there would still be room left over at the end of the mission. On the fifth day a relatively major problem occurred. One of thrusters in the OAMS stopped working. This meant the cancellation of all the experiments requiring fuel and none of the solutions worked to getting the thrusters to start working again. Seventeen experiments were planned with one cancelled, as it involved photography of the pod. D-1 involved the crew photographing celestial objects, and D-6 was a ground photography experiment. D-4/D-7 involved making brightness measurements of celestial and terrestrial backgrounds and on rocket plumes. S-8/D-13 was an experiment to investigate whether the crews eyesight changed during the mission. All the medical experiments from Gemini 4 were performed as well as M-1 into the performance of the heart. This involved Conrad wearing inflatable leg cuffs. There was also M-9 which investigated whether their ability to measure horizontally changed. S-1 involved Cooper taking the first photographs of the zodiacal light and the gegenschein from orbit. There were also syntopic photography of Earth. One photograph of the Zagros Mountains showed more detail than the official Geologic Map of Iran. S-7, Cloud-Top Spectrometer found that you could tell the height of cloud from orbit. Retrofire came 190 hours 27 minutes 43 seconds into the mission over Hawaii. They controlled the reentry, creating drag and lift by rotating the capsule. They still landed 130 kilometers short of the planned landing point. But the computer had worked perfectly, the problem was in the programming. Someone had entered the rate of the Earth's rotation as 360° per 24 hours instead of 360.98° See Sidereal day. The Gemini 5 mission was supported by the following U.S. Department of Defense resources; 10,265 personnel, 114 aircraft and 19 ships.

Insignia

This was the first mission to have an actual patch. Cooper realised that he had never been in a military organisation that didn't have its own patch. They decided on a covered wagon due to the pioneering nature of the flight. It was also intended to have '8 Days or Bust' across the wagon, but this plan was scuttled by the NASA manangers who feared that if the mission didn't last the full duration, it would be seen as a failure even if it wasn't. It also placed too much emphasis on the mission length and not the experiments. In the end they were 104 minutes short of eight days.

Capsule location

The capsule is on display at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas.

External links

- [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19750067642_1975067642.pdf Gemini 5 Mission Report (PDF) October 1965]
- On The Shoulders of Titans: A History of Project Gemini: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4203/cover.htm
- Spaceflight Mission Patches: http://www.genedorr.com/patches/Intro.html
- NASA data sheet: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/database/MasterCatalog?sc=1965-068A
- U.S. Space Objects Registry http://usspaceobjectsregistry.state.gov/search/index.cfm Gemini 05 Gemini 05

John H. Glenn

:This article is about the astronaut. For the English film director, see John Glen. John Herschel Glenn Jr. (born July 18, 1921, in Cambridge, Ohio) is a former American astronaut, Marine Corps fighter pilot, and politician. He was the third American to fly in space and the first American to orbit the earth. Later he served as a United States Senator from Ohio (1974 – 1999).

Early history and military career

Glenn grew up in Cambridge, Ohio and earned a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Muskingum College. He enrolled in the Naval Aviation Cadet Program in 1942 and was assigned to the Marines VMO-155 group in 1944. Glenn flew Corsairs over the Marshall Islands, specifically Maloelap, where he attacked anti-aircraft gunnery and dropped bombs. In 1945 Glenn was transferred to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, where he was promoted to captain by the war's end. After World War II, Glenn flew patrol missions in North China, based in Guam, and in 1948 he became an flight instructor at Corpus Christi, Texas, after which he took an amphibious warfare course and was given a staff assignment, all the while seeking transfer to combat in Korea. He was sent to Korea with Marine Corps squadron VMF-311, and his frequent wing-man was Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox, an already famous professional baseball player (and fine Marine pilot) who had been drafted for the second time in ten years. Glenn later flew in Korea with the Air Force on an interservice exchange. Flying an Air Force F-86 Sabre, he shot down three MiGs. He received several medals for his service. He returned to Patuxent River N.A.S., with an appointment to the Test Pilot School (class 12) after the Korean War. As a test pilot, he served as armament officer, flying planes to high altitudes and testing their cannon/machine guns. On July 16, 1957, Glenn completed the first supersonic transcontinental flight in a Vought F8U "Crusader." The California to New York flight took 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds. As Glenn passed over his hometown, a childhood neighbor reportedly ran to the Glenn house shouting "Johnny dropped a bomb! Johnny dropped a bomb!" as the supersonic boom shook the town.

NASA career

In 1959 Glenn was assigned to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as one of the original group of Mercury astronauts for the Project Mercury. During this time, he remained an officer in the Marine Corps. He piloted the first American manned orbital mission aboard Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962. After completing three orbits, the "Mercury Atlas 6" mission, lasting 4 hours, 55 minutes, and 23 seconds, Glenn was celebrated as a national hero, and received a ticker-tape parade reminiscent of Lindbergh. His fame and political gifts were noted by the Kennedys, and he became a personal friend of the Kennedy family; after the assassination of JFK, Jackie Kennedy asked Glenn to give the news to the Kennedy children on November 22, 1963. 1963 Glenn resigned from NASA six weeks after the Kennedy assassination to run for office in his home state of Ohio. In 1965 Glenn retired as a Colonel from the USMC and entered the business world as an executive for Royal Crown Cola. He reentered the world of politics later on. Some accounts of Glenn's years at NASA suggest that Glenn was prevented from flying in Gemini or Apollo missions, either by President John F. Kennedy himself or by NASA management. Yet Glenn resigned from the astronaut corps on January 30, 1964, well before even the first Gemini crew was assigned. Glenn lifted off for a second space flight on October 29, 1998, on Space Shuttle Discovery's STS-95 in order to study the effects of space flight on the elderly. At age 77, Glenn became the oldest person ever to go into space. Glenn's participation in the nine-day mission was criticized by some in the space community as a junket for a politician. Others noted that Glenn's flight offered valuable research on weightlessness and other aspects of space flight on the same person at two points in life thirty-five years apart--by far the farthest interval between space flights by the same person. Upon the safe return of the STS-95 crew, Glenn (and his crewmates) received another ticker-tape parade, making him the ninth (and, as of 2004, final) person to have ever received multiple ticker-tape parades in his lifetime (as opposed to that of a sports team). The NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field in Cleveland, Ohio, is named after him.

Life in politics

In 1970, John Glenn entered politics and represented Ohio for the Democratic Party in the Senate from 1974 until retiring in 1999. In 1964 he announced that he was running against incumbent Senator Stephen M. Young in the Democratic primary, but was forced to withdraw when he suffered a fall in his bathroom after attempting to adjust a heavy mirror. It fell on him, causing him to fall backwards and hit his head on the bathtub. He sustained a concussion and injured his inner ear. Recovery left him unable to campaign at that time. In 1970, Glenn contested for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate; however, Glenn lost in the primary to fellow Democrat Howard Metzenbaum, who went on to lose the general election race to Robert Taft Jr. In the bitterly-fought 1974 Democratic primary rematch, Glenn defeated Metzenbaum. Metzenbaum had been appointed by Ohio governor John J. Gilligan to the other Ohio Senate seat to fill out the term of William B. Saxbe, who had resigned to become U.S. attorney general. In the 1974 general election, Glenn defeated Republican Mayor of Cleveland Ralph Perk. In 1980, Glenn won re-election to the seat, defeating Republican challenger Jim Betts. In 1986, Glenn defeated challenger U.S. Representative Tom Kindness. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Glenn and Metzenbaum (who was elected to the Senate in 1976) had strained relations, even though they were both from the same party and the same state. There was a thaw in 1983 when Metzenbaum endorsed Glenn for president, and in 1988, in response to a charge by Metzenbaum's opponent George Voinovich that Metzenbaum was soft on child pornography, Glenn appeared in a television ad in support of Metzenbaum. Glenn was one of the five U.S. Senators caught up in the Keating Five Scandal after accepting a $200,000 contribution from Charles Keating. Glenn and Republican Senator John McCain were the only Senators exonerated. The Senate Commission found that Glenn had exercised "poor judgment," but nothing worse. The association of his name with the scandal gave Republicans hope that he would be vulnerable in the 1992 campaign. Instead, Glenn handily defeated U.S. Rep. R. Michael DeWine to keep his seat. This 1992 re-election victory is, as of 2004, the last time a Democrat won a statewide race in Ohio; DeWine later won Metzenbaum's seat upon his retirement. In 1998, Glenn declined to run for reelection. The Democratic party chose Mary Boyle to replace him, but she was defeated by then-Ohio Gov. George Voinovich. Glenn also made a bid to run as Vice President with Jimmy Carter in 1976, but Carter selected Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale at the 1976 Democratic National Convention. Glenn also mounted a bid to be the 1984 Democratic Presidential candidate. Early on, Glenn polled well, coming in a strong second to Mondale. It was also surmised that he would be aided by the almost-simultaneous release of The Right Stuff, a movie about the original seven Mercury astronauts in which it was generally agreed that Glenn's character was portrayed in a pleasing and appealing manner. However, Glenn apparently turned his attention to national politics too early, neglecting the sensitive voters of the Iowa caucuses. Media attention turned to Mondale, Gary Hart, and Jesse Jackson, leaving Glenn the strongest also-ran. The 1984 presidential bid left Glenn with a substantial campaign debt that took years to pay off. During his time in the Senate, he was chief author of the 1978 Nonproliferation Act, served as chairman of the Committee on Governmental Affairs from 1978 until 1995, sat on the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees and the Special Committee on Aging. Once Republicans regained control of the Senate, Glenn also served as the ranking minority member on a special Senate investigative committee chaired by Tennessee senator and actor Fred Thompson. There was considerable acrimony between the two very high-profile senators during the life of this committee, which reached a level of public disagreement between the two leaders of a Congressional committee seldom seen in recent years.

Family

Raised in Anna Margaret Castor; they are the parents of two children, David and Carolyn. Both Glenn and his future wife, Annie, attended Muskingum College, in New Concord, Ohio. After his retirement, John and Annie Glenn founded the John Glenn Institute for Public Service & Public Policy at The Ohio State University, which moved to its new facility, the renovated Page Hall, in 2005. Glenn and his wife both suffer from varying degrees of hearing loss, and concern for this issue has always been one of Glenn's foremost interests. Glenn and Annie were both members of the Ohio delegation to the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

Trivia

The night of the 1968 California presidential primary, when presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy was shot after delivering his victory speech, the Glenns were watching in the Kennedys' hotel suite. Glenn went to the hospital, where after three hours of surgery Robert Kennedy was in a coma but still alive. The Glenns were then asked to take five of the ten RFK children back to their home in Virginia. There, Glenn received the call that Robert Kennedy to tell the children that their father was dead. Quote attributed to John Glenn; "As I hurtled through space, one thought kept crossing my mind: Every part of this capsule was supplied by the lowest bidder."

External links

- [http://www.johnglennhome.org/index.shtml John & Annie Glenn Historic Site and Home]
- [http://www.glenninstitute.org/glenn/index.asp John Glenn Institute, The Ohio State University]
- [http://www11.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/glenn-j.html NASA Biography]
- [http://espn.go.com/classic/obit/s/2002/0705/1402612.html ESPN article on Glenn's reflections at Ted Williams' death] Glenn, John Glenn, John Glenn, John Herschel Jr. Glenn, John Glenn, John Glenn, John ja:ジョン・グレン

Mercury Atlas 6

Crew

- John Glenn (flew on Mercury 6 & STS-95)

Backup Crew

- M. Scott Carpenter

Mission Parameters

- Mass: 1,352 kg
- Perigee: 159 km
- Apogee: 265 km
- Inclination: 32.5°
- Period: 88.5 min

Mission Highlights

The Mercury 6 mission was the first attempt by the U.S. and Mercury program to place an astronaut in orbit. The MA-6 mission was launched on February 20, 1962, from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The flight used Atlas # 109-D and Mercury spacecraft # 13. The spacecraft was named Friendship 7. It made three earth orbits, piloted by astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth. After the successful completion of the Mercury 5 flight that carried Enos the Chimp in late November, 1961, a press conference was held in early December, 1961. Reporters asked NASA's Robert Gilruth who would be the first U.S. astronaut in orbit, piloting Mercury 6. He then announced the team members for the next two Mercury missions. John H. Glenn was the selected as prime pilot for the first mission (Mercury 6), with M. Scott Carpenter as his backup. Donald K. Slayton and Walter M. Schirra were pilot and backup, respectively, for the second mission, Mercury 7. The Mercury 6 launch vehicle, Atlas #109-D, arrived at Cape Canaveral the evening of November 30, 1961. NASA had wanted to launch Mercury 6 in 1961 (hoping to orbit an astronaut in the same calendar year as the Soviets did), but by early December it was apparent that the mission hardware would not be ready for launch until early 1962. Mercury spacecraft # 13 began taking form on McDonnell's St. Louis, Missouri assembly line in May 1960. It was chosen for the MA-6 mission in October, 1960 and delivered to Cape Canaveral on August 27, 1961. Mercury spacecraft # 13 and Atlas # 109-D were stacked on the pad at Launch Complex 14 on January 2, 1962. The launch date was first announced as January 16, 1962, then postponed to January 23 because of problems with the Atlas rocket fuel tanks. The launch then slipped day by day to January 27 because of weather. On January 27, 1962, John Glenn had been onboard Mercury 6 and ready to launch, when at T-20 minutes, the flight directory called off the launch because of the heavy overcast. The heavy cloud cover would have prevented the necessary photo coverage of the launch. The launch was postponed until February 1, 1962. When technicians began to fuel the Atlas on January 30, they discovered a fuel leak had soaked an internal insulation blanket between the fuel and oxidizer tanks of the rocket. This caused a two week delay while necessary repairs were made. On February 15, the launch was again postponed due to weather. Finally on February 19, the weather started to break. It appeared that February 20, 1962 would be a favorable day to attempt a launch. 1962 John Glenn boarded the Friendship 7 spacecraft at 11:03 UTC on February 20, 1962. The hatch was bolted in place at 12:10 UTC. Most of the 70 hatch bolts had been secured, when one was discovered to be broken. This caused a 40 minute delay while all the bolts were removed, the defective bolt was replaced and the hatch was re-bolted in place. At 14:47 UTC, after two hours and 17 minutes of holds and three hours and 44 minutes after Glenn entered Friendship 7, it was finally launched. At liftoff Glenn's pulse rate climbed to 110. Thirty seconds after liftoff the General Electric-Burroughs guidance system locked onto a radio transponder in the booster to guide the vehicle to orbit. As the Atlas and Friendship 7 passed through max-q Glenn reported, "It's a little bumpy about here." After max-q the flight smoothed out. At two minutes and 14 seconds after launch, the booster engines cut off and dropped away. Then at two minutes and twenty-four seconds, the escape tower was jettisoned, right on schedule. After the tower was jettisoned, the Atlas and spacecraft pitched over still further, giving Glenn his first view of the horizon. He described the view as "a beautiful sight, looking eastward across the Atlantic." Vibration increased as the last of the fuel supply was used up. At SECO it was found that the Atlas had accelerated the capsule to a velocity only 7 ft/s (2 m/s) below nominal. At 14:52 UTC, Friendship 7 was in orbit. Glenn received word that the Atlas had boosted the MA-6 into a trajectory that would stay up for at least seven orbits. Meanwhile, computers at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland indicated that the MA-6 orbital parameters appeared good enough for almost 100 orbits. 1962 When the posigrade rockets fired and separated the capsule from the booster, the five-second rate-damping operation started two and a half seconds late. This caused a substantial roll error as the capsule began its turnaround. The automatic attitude control system took 38 seconds to place the Friendship 7 into its proper orbital attitude. The turnaround maneuver used 5.4 pounds (2.4 kg) of fuel from a total supply of 60.4 pounds (27.4 kg) (36 lb (16.3 kg) for automatic and 24.4 lb (11.1 kg) for manual control system). The spacecraft then settled into orbital flight with a velocity of 17,544 mph (7,843 m/s). Friendship 7 began its first orbit with all systems go. It crossed the Atlantic and passed over the Canary Islands. Controllers there reported all capsule systems in perfect working order. Looking at the African coastline, and later the interior over Kano, Nigeria, Glenn told the tracking station team that he could see a dust storm. Kano flight communicators replied that the winds had been quite heavy for the past week. Over Kano, Nigeria, Glenn took control of the spacecraft and started a major yaw adjustment. He allowed the spacecraft to continue the yaw maneuver until it was facing into its flight path. Glenn noticed that the attitude indicators disagreed with what he observed were the true spacecraft attitudes. Even with the incorrect instrument readouts, he was pleased to be facing the forward instead of backward on his orbital path. Over the Indian Ocean on his first orbit, Glenn observed his first sunset from orbit. He described the moment of twilight as "beautiful." Space sky was very black, he said, with a thin band of blue along the horizon. Glenn described the sunset. The sun went down fast but not as quickly as he had expected. For five or six minutes there was a slow reduction in light intensity. Brilliant orange and blue layers spread out 45 to 60 degrees on either side of the sun, tapering gradually toward the horizon. Clouds prevented him from seeing a mortar flare fired by the Indian Ocean tracking ship as part of a pilot observation experiment. Continuing his journey on the night side of Earth, nearing the Australian coastline, Glenn made star, weather, and landmark observations. He failed to see the dim light phenomenon known as zodiacal light. His eyes had not had sufficient time to adapt to the darkness. The spacecraft came into radio range of Muchea, Australia. At the Mercury Tracking Station there, Gordon Cooper was the capsule communicator. Glenn reported that he felt fine and had no problems. He saw a very bright light and what appeared to be the outline of a city. Cooper said that he probably was looking at the lights of Perth and Rockingham. "That sure was a short day," he excitedly told Cooper. "That was about the shortest day I've ever run into." The spacecraft moved across Australia and across the Pacific to Canton Island. Glenn experienced a short 45 minute night and prepared the periscope for viewing his first sunrise in orbit. As the sun rose over Canton Island, he saw thousands of "little specks, brilliant specks, floating around outside the capsule." Glenn had the impression that the spacecraft was tumbling or that he was looking into a star field. A quick hard look out of the spacecraft window corrected this momentary illusion. He definitely thought the "fireflies," as he called the small objects, were streaming past his spacecraft from ahead. They seemed to flow by slowly but did not seem to be coming from any part of the spacecraft. As Friendship 7 moved into brighter sunlight, the "fireflies" disappeared. They were probably small ice crystals venting from onboard spacecraft systems. zodiacal light As the spacecraft crossed the Kauai, Hawaii tracking station, Glenn noticed a lot of interference on the HF radio band. As he crossed the Pacific coast of North America the tracking station at Guaymas, Mexico, informed Mercury Control in Florida that a yaw thruster was causing attitude control problems. Glenn later recalled, this problem "was to stick with me for the rest of the flight." Glenn noticed the control problem when the automatic stabilization and control system allowed the spacecraft to drift about a degree and a half per second to the right. Glenn switched control to manual-proportional control mode and moved Friendship 7 back to the proper attitude. He tried different control modes to see which used the least fuel to maintain attitude. The manual fly-by-wire combination used the least fuel. After about twenty minutes the yaw thruster began working again and Glenn switched back to the automatic control system. It worked for a short time and then began having problems again, this time with the opposite yaw thruster. He then switched back to the manual fly-by-wire system and flew the spacecraft in that mode for the remainder of the flight. As Friendship 7 crossed Cape Canaveral at the start of its second orbit, a flight controller noticed that "Segment 51", an sensor providing data on the spacecraft landing system, was giving a strange reading. According to the reading, the heat shield and landing bag were no longer locked in position. If this were the case, the heat shield was only being held against the spacecraft by the straps of the retro package. Mercury Control ordered all tracking sites to monitor "Segment 51" closely and advise Glenn that the landing-bag deploy switch should be in the "off" position. Glenn was not immediately aware of the problem, but he became suspicious when site after site asked him to make sure that the landing-bag deploy switch was off. Meanwhile Friendship 7 was crossing the Atlantic for the second time. Glenn was busy manually keeping the spacecraft attitude correct and also trying to accomplish as many of the flight plan tasks as he could. Crossing over the Canary Islands, Glenn observed that the "fireflies" outside the spacecraft had no connection with gas from the reaction control jets. His suit temperature felt too warm, but he didn't take time to adjust it. The Kano, Nigeria and Zanzibar sites suddenly noticed a 12 percent drop in the spacecraft secondary oxygen supply. During his second pass over the Indian Ocean, Glenn found that the Indian Ocean tracking ship was in heavy weather. Instead of releasing balloons for a pilot observation experiment, the ship fired star-shell parachute flares as Friendship 7 passed overhead. Glenn only was able to observe the flashes of lightning from storms in the area. The temperature in Glenn's spacesuit was too warm. It had been since he passed over the Canary Islands, earlier in the second orbit. As he crossed the Indian Ocean he tried to adjust the suit temperature. Coming up on Woomera, Australia, a signal light came on warning him of excess cabin humidity. For the rest of the flight Glenn had to carefully balance suit cooling against the cabin humidity. Cape Canaveral While still over Australia, another warning light came on, indicating that the fuel supply for the automatic control system was down to 62 percent. Mercury Control recommended that Glenn let the spacecraft attitude drift to conserve fuel. There were no more problems for Friendship 7 during the remainder of the second orbit. He continued to manually control the spacecraft attitude, not allowing it too drift too far out of alignment. In doing so, he consumed more fuel than a functioning automatic system would have used. Fuel consumption was 6 pounds (2.7 kg) from the automatic tank and 11.8 pounds (5.4 kg) from the manual tank, during the second orbit. This amounted to almost 30 percent of the total fuel supply. On the third orbit of Friendship 7, the Indian Ocean tracking ship did not attempt to launch any objects for pilot observation experiments. The cloud coverage was still too thick. When the spacecraft came across Australia for the third time, Glenn joked with Cooper at the Muchea Tracking Station. Then Glenn jokingly asked Cooper to notify General Shoup, Commandant of the Marine Corps, that three orbits should meet the minimum monthly requirement of four hours' flying time. He also asked to be certified as eligible for his regular flight pay. Meanwhile, Mercury Control had been monitoring the "Segment 51", situation. The Hawaiian tracking station asked Glenn to toggle the landing bag deploy switch into the automatic position. If a light came on, reentry should take place while retaining the retro pack. Adding this to past questions about the landing bag switch, Glenn realized there was a possible problem with a loose heat shield. The test was run but no light appeared. Glenn also reported there were no bumping noises during spacecraft maneuvers. Mercury Control was still undecided on the course of action to take. Some controllers thought the retro pack should be jettisoned after retrofire, while other controllers thought the retro pack should be retained, as added assurance that the heat shield would stay in place. Flight Director Christopher Kraft and Mission Director Walter C. Williams, decided to keep the retro pack in place during reentry. Walter Schirra, the California communicator at Point Arguello, relayed the instructions to Glenn. The retro pack should be retained until the spacecraft was over the Texas tracking station. Glenn was now preparing for reentry. Retaining the retro package would mean he had to retract the periscope manually. He would also have to activate the .05-g sequence by pushing the override switch. Friendship 7 neared the California coast. It had been four hours and 33 minutes since launch. The spacecraft was maneuvered into retrofire attitude and the first retrorocket fired. "Boy, feels like I'm going halfway back to Hawaii," Glenn radioed. The second and then the third retros fired at five second intervals. The spacecraft attitude was steady during retrofire. Six minutes after retrofire; Glenn maneuvered the spacecraft into a 14 degree nose up, pitch attitude for reentry. Friendship 7 lost altitude in its reentry glide over the continental United States, headed toward splashdown in the Atlantic. The Texas tracking station told Glenn to retain the retro pack until the accelerometer read 1.5 g (14.7 m/s²). Glenn reported as he crossed Cape Canaveral he had been controlling the spacecraft manually and would use the fly-by–wire mode as a backup. Mercury Control then gave him the 0.05 g (0.49 m/s²) mark, and he pressed the override button. About the same time, Glenn heard noises that sounded like "small things brushing against the capsule." "That's a real fireball outside," he radioed Mercury Control. A strap from the retro package broke partially loose and hung over the spacecraft window as it was consumed in the reentry plasma stream. The spacecraft control system was working well but the manual fuel supply was down to 15 percent. The peak of reentry deceleration was still to come. Glenn switched to fly-by-wire and the automatic tank supply. This combination had more available fuel. The spacecraft now experienced peak reentry heating. Glenn later reported, "I thought the retro pack had jettisoned and saw chunks coming off and flying by the window." He feared the chunks were pieces of his heatshield that might be disintegrating. The chunks were pieces of the retro package breaking up in the reentry fireball. After passing the peak g region, the Friendship 7 began oscillating severely. The astronaut could not control the ship manually. The spacecraft was oscillating past 10 degrees on both sides of the vertical zero-degree point. "I felt like a falling leaf," Glenn later said. He activated the auxiliary damping system, this helped stabilize the large yaw and roll rates. Fuel in the automatic tanks was getting low. Glenn wondered if the spacecraft would retain stability until it was low enough to deploy the drogue parachute. The automatic fuel supply ran out at 1 minute and 51 seconds, and manual fuel ran out at 51 seconds, before drogue chute deployment. The oscillations resumed, at 35,000 feet (10 km) Glenn decided to deploy the drogue chute manually to regain attitude stability. Just before he reached the switch, the drogue chute opened automatically at 28,000 feet (8.5 km) instead of the programmed 21,000 feet (6.4 km). The spacecraft regained stability and Glenn reported, "everything was in good shape." At 17,000 feet (5 km) the periscope opened and was available for the astronaut to use. Glenn tried to look out the overhead window instead, but it was coated with so much smoke and film that he could see very little. The spacecraft continued to descend on the drogue chute. The antenna section jettisoned and the main chute deployed and opened to its full diameter. Mercury Control reminded Glenn to manually deploy the landing bag. He toggled the switch and the green light confirmation came on. A "clunk" could be heard as the heat shield and landing bag dropped into place, four feet (1.2 m) below the capsule. Cape Canaveral Friendship 7 had splashed down in the Atlantic about 40 miles (60 km) short of the planned landing zone. Retrofire calculations had not taken into account spacecraft weight loss due to use of onboard consumables. The USS Noa, a destroyer code-named Steelhead, had spotted the spacecraft when it was descending on its parachute. The destroyer was about six miles (10 km) away when it radioed Glenn that it would reach him shortly. The Noa came alongside Friendship 7 seventeen minutes later. One crewman cleared the spacecraft antenna and another crewman attached a line to hoist Friendship 7 aboard. After being pulled from the water the spacecraft bumped against the side of the destroyer. Once Friendship 7 was on deck, Glenn intended to leave the capsule through the upper hatch. But it was too hot in the spacecraft and Glenn decided to blow the side hatch instead. He told the ship's crew to stand clear and hit the hatch detonator plunger with the back of his hand. The detonator plunger recoiled, and slightly cut the astronauts knuckles through his glove. With a loud bang, the hatch was off. A smiling John Glenn got out of Friendship 7 and stood on the deck of the Noa. His first words were, "It was hot in there." According to a chart printed in the NASA publication, "Results of the First United States Manned Orbital Space Flight, Feb. 20, 1962", the landing coordinates are near . The astronaut and spacecraft came through the mission in good shape. America had taken its first step on the way to the moon. The "Segment 51" warning light problem was later determined to be a faulty sensor switch. The heat shield and landing bag were in fact secure during reentry. February 21, 1962, a metal fragment was recovered on a farm in South Africa. It was identified as coming from the MA-6 Atlas launch vehicle by numbers stamped on it. The fragment had landed on the farm after about 8 hours in orbit. Mercury spacecraft # 13 - Friendship 7, used in the Mercury-Atlas 6 mission, is currently displayed at the National Air and Space Museum, Washington D.C. [http://aesp.nasa.okstate.edu/fieldguide/pages/mercury/ma-6.html Mercury spacecraft #13 Friendship 7 display page on A Field Guide to American Spacecraft website.]

Mercury-Atlas Three Orbit Flight Events

Reference

- [http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4201/cover.htm This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury - NASA SP-4201]
- [http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/sc-query.html NASA NSSDC Master Catalog]
- [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19930074071_1993074071.pdf Results of the first US manned orbital space flight - Feb 20, 1962 (Friendship 7) NASA report - (PDF format)]
- [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19990026158_1999028570.pdf This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury - NASA report (PDF format)]
- [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19630011968_1963011968.pdf Chronology of Project Mercury - NASA report (PDF format)]
Category:Human spaceflights Category:Mercury program

Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom

Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom (April 3, 1926 – January 27, 1967) was a U.S. Air Force pilot who became one of the first American astronauts and one of the first to die in the U.S. space program.

Background

Grissom was born in Mitchell, Indiana and graduated from Mitchell High School. He earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Purdue University in 1950. He had two children, Scott and Mark, with his wife Betty Moore Grissom.

Career

Military

Grissom was a United States Air Force Lieutenant Colonel. He received his wings in March, 1951. Over his Air Force career he flew 100 combat missions in Korea in F-86s with the 334th Fighter Interceptor Squadron. Upon returning from Korea, he became a jet instructor at Bryan, Texas. In August 1955, Grissom entered the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, to study aeronautical engineering. In October 1956, he entered the Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California, and returned to Wright-Patterson in May 1957 as a test pilot assigned to the fighter branch.

NASA

In 1959, after physical and psychological tests, Grissom was chosen as one of the seven Project Mercury astronauts, along with:
- Lieutenant Malcolm Scott Carpenter, U.S. Navy
- Captain LeRoy Gordon Cooper, Jr., U.S. Air Force
- Lieutenant Colonel John Herschel Glenn, Jr., U.S. Marine Corps
- Lieutenant Commander Walter Marty Schirra, Jr., U.S. Navy
- Lieutenant Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr., U.S. Navy
- Captain Donald Kent Slayton, U.S. Air Force He was pilot of Mercury-Redstone 4 ("Liberty Bell 7"), the second American (suborbital) spaceflight. Following the Splashdown of "Liberty Bell 7", the hatch ejected prematurely, letting water into the capsule and into Grissom's suit. Grissom nearly drowned but was rescued by helicopter, while the spacecraft sank in deep water. After Alan Shepard was grounded, Grissom was designated command pilot for the first manned Project Gemini mission (Gemini 3), making him the first man to return to space, in addition he was named as backup command pilot for Gemini 6.

Death

Grissom was made commander of Apollo 1, intended to be the first manned Apollo flight. He was killed along with fellow astronauts Ed White and Roger B. Chaffee in the Apollo 1 fire at Cape Kennedy on January 27 1967. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. NASA management wanted one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts to be the first man to eventually walk on the moon. Had Grissom lived, he would very likely have been that man. He logged a total of 4,600 hours flying time, including 3,500 hours in jet aircraft.

Awards and honors

- Posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor
- Posthumously made Honorary Mayor of the City of Newport News, Virginia
- Distinguished Flying Cross for his service in Korea
- Air Medal with cluster for his service in Korea
- Two NASA Distinguished Service Medals
- The NASA Exceptional Service Medal
- The Air Force Command Astronaut Wings
- Honorary Doctorate, Florida Institute of Technology

Tributes

- Grissom Air Reserve Base in Indiana is named after him.
- The Virgil I. Grissom Library in the Denbigh section of Newport News, Virginia is named after him.
- The Virgil I. Grissom High School in Huntsville, Alabama is named after him.
- The Virgil I. Grissom Middle School in Mishawaka, Indiana is named after him.
- The now defunct V.I. Grissom Elementary School in the former Clark Air Base, Philippines was named after him.
- CSI character Gil Grissom is named after him.
- Thunderbirds character Virgil Tracy is named after him.
- Grissom Hall at Purdue University is named after him.
- Grissom Hall at Florida Institute of Technology is named after him.
- The star Epsilon Cassiopeiae was named Navi, "Ivan" backwards, in his honor. Grissom and his crew used the star to calibrate their equipment and recorded the name as a joke, though it eventually stuck.

Film and television

Grissom was depicted in the movie The Right Stuff (1983) by Fred Ward and in the TV mini-series From the Earth to the Moon (1998) by Mark Rolston. In the movie Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, the Federation starship sent to survey the newly formed Genesis Planet was named USS Grissom.

References

-
-
- [http://amfcse.org/honor/grissom.htm Astronaut Memorial Foundation webpage]
- http://www.space.com/spacewatch/star_names_030829.html
- [http://www.fit.edu/walkingtour/memorial.html Florida Institute of Technology - Walking Tour - Challenger Memorial]
- [http://www.floridatoday.com/columbia/columbiastory2A9379A.htm Florida Today, August 17, 2004]

External links

- [http://www.afrc.af.mil/434arw/ Grissom Air Reserve Base]
- [http://www.datamanos2.com/apollo_burning.html Apollo Burning], a tribute to the Apollo 1 astronauts Grissom, Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Virgil "Gus" Category:Space Program Deaths Grissom, Virgil "Gus" ja:ガス・グリソム

Mercury 4

Mercury 4 was a Mercury program manned space mission launched on July 21, 1961 using a Redstone rocket. Its capsule was named Liberty Bell 7 and performed a suborbital flight piloted by astronaut Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom. It reached an altitude of over 118.26 statute miles (190 km) and traveled about 300 miles (480 km). The Redstone was MRLV-8 and the spacecraft was Mercury spacecraft # 11, the first one with a centerline window instead of two portholes.

Crew

- Gus Grissom (flew on Mercury 4 & Gemini 3)

Backup Crew

- John Glenn

Mission Parameters

- Mass: 1286 kg
- Maximum Altitude: 190.39 km
- Range: 486.15 km
- Launch Vehicle: Redstone rocket

Liberty Bell 7

Mercury spacecraft # 11, was designated to fly the second manned suborbital flight in October, 1961. It came off McDonnell's St. Louis production line in May 1960. Spacecraft # 11 was the first Mercury operational spacecraft with a centerline window. It was closer to the final orbital version than was Alan Shepard's Freedom 7.

Explosive hatch

Spacecraft # 11 also had a new explosive side hatch. This would allow an astronaut to exit the spacecraft quickly in the event of an emergency. Emergency personnel could also trigger the explosive hatch from outside the spacecraft by pulling on an external lanyard. The original exit procedure was to climb out through the antenna compartment, after removing a small pressure bulkhead. This was a difficult and slow procedure. Removal of an injured or unconscious astronaut through the top hatch would be nearly impossible. The original side hatch was bolted shut with 70 bolts and covered with several spacecraft shingles. It was a slow process to open the original hatch. McDonnell engineers came up with two different quick release hatches for the Mercury spacecraft. One with a latch, used on Ham's MR-2 and Shepard's MR-3 missions. The other design was an explosive release hatch. The quick release latching hatch weighed 69 pounds (31 kg), too much of a weight addition to use on the orbital version of the spacecraft. The explosive hatch design used the 70 bolts of the original design; but each quarter-inch (6.35 mm) titanium bolt had a 0.06 inch (1.5 mm) hole bored into it to provide a weak point. A mild detonating fuse (MDF) is installed in a channel between the inner and outer seal around the periphery of the hatch. When the MDF is ignited, the resulting gas pressure between the inner and outer seal causes the bolts to fail in tension. There were two ways to fire the explosive hatch during recovery. On the inside of the hatch was a knobbed plunger. The pilot could remove a pin and press the plunger with a force of five or six pounds force (25 N). This would detonate the explosive charge which would shear off the 70 bolts and propel the hatch 25 feet (8 m) away in 1 second. If the pin was left in place, a force of 40 pounds (180 N) was required to detonate the hatch. An outside rescuer could blow open the hatch by removing a small panel near the hatch and pull a lanyard. The explosive hatch weighed only 23 pounds (10 kg).

Window

The new rectangular window on spacecraft # 11 replaced the two 10 inch (254 mm) side portholes that were on Freedom 7. The Corning Glass Works of Corning, New York, designed and developed the multilayered panes that made up the new window. The outer pane was Vycor glass was 0.35 inch (8.9 mm) thick. It could withstand temperatures of 1500 to 1800 °F (820 to 980 °C). The inner pane was made up of three inner glass panels bonded to make the inner pane. One panel was a 0.17 inch (4.3 mm) thick sheet of Vycor, the two others made of tempered glass. This new window assembly was as strong as any part of the spacecraft pressure vessel.

Controls

The manual controls for Mercury 4 incorporated a new rate stabilization control system. This allowed fine control of spacecraft attitude movements by small turns of the hand controller. Previously a lot of jockeying of the device was needed to attain the desired attitude. This rate damping or rate augmentation system gave finer and easier handling qualities and a redundant means of firing the pitch, yaw, and roll thrusters. Before the Mercury 4 flight, Lewis Research Center and Space Task Group engineers had determined that firing the posigrade rockets into the booster-spacecraft adapter, rather than in the open, developed 78 percent greater thrust. This achieved a greater spacecraft-booster separation through a kind of "pop-gun" effect. By using this technique, the spacecraft separated at velocity of about 28.1 feet per second (9 m/s) rather than 15 feet per second (5 m/s) using the old procedure. Mercury 4 flight would take advantage of this new procedure. Additional hardware changes to Mercury 4 were a redesigned fairing for the spacecraft-Redstone adapter clamp-ring and additional foam padding was added to the head area of the contour couch. The fairing changes and additional foam were used to reduce vibrations the pilot experienced during the boost phase of flight. The spacecraft instrument panel was rearranged to provide a better eye scan pattern.

Mission description

In January, 1961, NASA's Director of the Space Task Group, Robert Gilruth, told Gus Grissom that he would be the primary pilot for Mercury 4. John Glenn was the backup pilot for the mission. Redstone launch vehicle MRLV-8 arrived at Cape Canaveral on June 8, 1961. A mission review on July 15, 1961 pronounced Redstone MRLV-8 and Mercury spacecraft # 11 ready to go for the Mercury 4 mission. Also, on July 15, 1961 Gus Grissom announced he would name Mercury 4, Liberty Bell 7. Grissom said the name was an appropriate call-sign for the bell-shaped capsule. He also said the name was synonymous with "freedom". As a tribute to the original Liberty Bell, a "crack" was painted on the side of the capsule. The Mercury 4 mission was planned as a repeat of MR-3. It was to reach an apogee of 116 miles (187 km). The planned range was 299 miles (481 km). Grissom would experience a maximum acceleration of 6.33 g (62 m/s²) and deceleration of 10.96 g (107 m/s²). The launch of Liberty Bell 7 was first planned for July 16. The cloud cover was too thick and the launch was postponed until July 18. On July 18, it was again postponed due to weather. Both times, the pilot had not yet boarded the spacecraft. On July 19, 1961, Grissom was aboard the Liberty Bell 7 when the flight was delayed again due to weather. At that point, it had just 10 minutes 30 seconds to go before launch. On the morning of July 21, 1961, Gus Grissom entered the Liberty Bell 7 at 8:58 UTC and the 70 hatch bolts were put in place. At 45 minutes prior to the scheduled launch, a pad technician discovered that one of the hatch bolts was misaligned. During a 30 minute hold that was called, McDonnell and NASA Space Task Group engineers decided that the 69 remaining bolts should be sufficient to hold the hatch in place and blow it at the appropriate time. The misaligned bolt was not replaced. The Liberty Bell 7 was launched at 12:20:36 UTC, July 21, 1961.

Liftoff

Grissom later admitted at the postflight debriefing that he was "a bit scared" at liftoff, but he added that he soon gained confidence along with the acceleration increase. Hearing the engine roar at the pedestal, he thought that his elapsed-time clock had started late. Like Shepard, he was amazed at the smooth quality of the liftoff, but then he noticed gradually more severe vibrations. These were never violent enough to impair his vision. Grissom's cabin pressure sealed off at the proper altitude, about 27,000 feet (8.2 km), and he felt elated that the environmental control system was in good working order. The suit and cabin temperature, about 57.5 and 97 °F (14 and 36 °C), respectively, were quite comfortable. Watching his instruments for the pitch rate of the Redstone, Grissom saw it follow directions as programmed, tilting over about one degree per second. Under a 3 g (29 m/s²) acceleration on the up-leg of his flight, Grissom noticed a sudden change in the color of the horizon from light blue to jet black. His attention was distracted by the noise of the tower-jettison rocket firing on schedule. The pilot felt the separation and watched the tower through the window as i

The Mercury Seven

See also

Project Mercury

Spacecraft

Boosters

Astronauts

Flights

Robotic

Primate flights

Piloted

Suborbital

Orbital

Piloted Mercury launches

Mercury Flight insignias

Follow-on programs

Miscellaneous

Further reading

See also

External links

M. Scott Carpenter

Books

External links

Mercury Atlas 7

Crew

Backup Crew

Mission Parameters

See also

Mission Highlights

Mercury-Atlas Three Orbit Flight Events

External links

Mercury 9

Crew

Backup Crew

Mission Parameters

See also

Mission Highlights

Reference

External link

Gemini 5

Crew

Backup crew

Mission parameters

See also

Objectives

Flight

Insignia

Capsule location

External links

John H. Glenn

Early history and military career

NASA career

Life in politics

Family

Trivia

External links

Mercury Atlas 6

Crew

Backup Crew

Mission Parameters

See also

Mission Highlights

Mercury-Atlas Three Orbit Flight Events

Reference

Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom

Background

Career

Military

NASA

Death

Awards and honors

Tributes

Film and television

References

External links

Mercury 4

Crew

Backup Crew

Mission Parameters

Liberty Bell 7

Explosive hatch