Home - Search - Browse - Alphabetic Index: 0- 1- 2- 3- 4- 5- 6- 7- 8- 9
A- B- C- D- E- F- G- H- I- J- K- L- M- N- O- P- Q- R- S- T- U- V- W- X- Y- Z

---

Mercury MR-3

---

Mercury 3 Credit: NASA

AKA: Freedom 7. Launched: 1961-05-05. Returned: 1961-05-05. Number crew: 1 . Duration: 0.0107 days. Location: U.S. Naval Academy, College of Medicine, Anapolis, MD.

Only manned flight with original Mercury capsule design (tiny round porthole and periscope a la Vostok). If NASA had not listened to Von Braun, Shepard would have flown on the MR-BD flight of 24 March, beating Gagarin by three weeks and becoming the first man in space (though not in orbit). Shepard's capsule reached an altitude of 115.696 miles, range of 302 miles, and speed of 5,100 miles per hour. He demonstrated control of a vehicle during weightlessness and high G stresses. Recovery operations were perfect; there was no damage to the spacecraft; and Astronaut Shepard was in excellent condition.

Official NASA Account of the Mission from This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury, by Loyd S. Swenson Jr., James M. Grimwood, and Charles C. Alexander, NASA Historical Series SP-4201, 1966.

Starting at 8:30 p.m. on May 4, the countdown proceeded without a hitch. Around midnight a built-in hold was called for the purpose of installing the pyrotechnics, servicing the hydrogen peroxide system, and allowing the operations team some rest. The countdown was resumed in the early morning hours of May 5, and another intended hold occurred some two and a half hours before the 7 a.m. anticipated launch to assure that spacecraft checkout was complete before transporting the astronaut to the pad area.

Shepard, awakened at 1:10 a.m., began an unhurried but precise routine involving a shower and a shave. With his physician, William K. Douglas, his understudy, John Glenn, and a few other members of the operational team, he sat down to a breakfast consisting of orange juice, a filet mignon wrapped in bacon, and some scrambled eggs. Shepard had begun a low- residue diet three days before the anticipated launch. At 2:40 a.m. he received a physical examination. This was followed by the placement of biosensors at points indicated by tattoo marks on his body. He was now ready for Joe W. Schmitt, an STG suit technician, to assist him in donning the pressure suit.

Shepard entered the transfer van at 3:55 a.m. In the van, on the way to the pad, he lay on a couch while technicians purged his suit with oxygen. When the van arrived at the pad, Schmitt began to attach the astronaut's gloves while Gordon Cooper briefed him on the launch status.

At 5:15 a.m. Shepard, carrying his portable air conditioner, ascended the gantry, and five minutes later he entered the spacecraft. If everything went well, he had two hours and five minutes to wait before liftoff. While Shepard was preparing to lower himself into the couch, his right foot slipped off the right elbow support. But he eased himself into position without further difficulty.

Schmitt fastened the harness and helped with the hose connections. Then he solemnly shook the spaceman's gloved hand. "Happy landings, Commander!" chorused the gantry crew.

For Alan Shepard, this was the most dramatic moment of his 37 years, a moment he would recall with the most acute poignancy for the rest of his life. Afterward he told how his heart quickened as the hatch was closed.

The sensation was brief; his heartbeat soon returned to normal. At 6:25 a.m. he began a denitrogenation procedure by breathing pure oxygen. This was to prevent aeroembolism, or decompression sickness, the airman's equivalent of the deep- sea diver's bends.

Now the countdown resumed.

At 15 minutes before launch the sky became slightly overcast, so photographic conditions were below par. Weathermen said the conditions would clear in 35 to 40 minutes, and a hold was called. Shepard became resigned to this hold and relaxed by peering through the periscope. He was not uncomfortable, because he was able to shift his body in the couch. Telemetered biomedical data confirmed that his condition was good. While waiting for the clouds to clear away, a hold was called to replace a 115-volt, 400-cycle inverter in the electrical system of the launch vehicle. This hold lasted for 52 minutes, after which the count was recycled to 35 minutes before launch. At the 15-minute point, one of the Goddard IBM 7090 computers in Maryland was found to be in error. Making this correction required a complete computer recheck-run. After a total hold time of two hours and 34 minutes, the count continued and progressed without more trouble. Shepard had been in the capsule four hours and 14 minutes when the final seconds ticked off to liftoff.

Two minutes before the launch, voice communications between the astronaut and the operations team switched from Cooper in the blockhouse to Donald K. Slayton in the Mercury Control Center. From that point until launch, the "talk" was continuous as each panel monitor advised Slayton of his system's status for relay to Shepard. To the astronaut the monitors seemed slow in reporting the go condition, and this he attributed to his own eagerness to be off. Schirra was now circling above in his F- 106 chase plane, waiting to follow the Redstone and Shepard as high as he could. Because of his excitement, Shepard said he failed to hear much of the closing countdown, with the exception of the firing command. During this period his pulse rate rose from 80 per minute to 126 at the liftoff signal. This rise caused no medical concern, for it was about the same as that of an automobile driver moving out from a service road to a freeway crowded with heavy traffic. Shepard was not alone in his excitement; he was joined by the operations team, the press corps at the Cape, and millions of people viewing the liftoff on television.

Shepard saw the umbilical cable supplying prelaunch electrical power to the Mercury-Redstone and its supporting boom fall away. He raised his hand to start the elapsed-time clock that ticked off the seconds of the flight. The onboard camera, clicking at six frames per second, confirmed his alertness as the MR-3 combination roared and began to climb. He was surprised by the smoothness of the liftoff and the clearness of Slayton's voice in Mercury Control. All his transmissions were acknowledged without requests for repeat. The ride continued smoothly for about 45 seconds; then the rocket, capsule, and astronaut began vibrating. Conditioned to these circumstances, Shepard realized that he was passing through the transonic speed zone, where turbulence built up. The buffeting became rugged at the point of maximum aerodynamic pressures, about 88 seconds after liftoff; Shepard's head and helmet were bouncing so hard that he could not read his panel dials. Sound levels were noticeably higher at that point but still not uncomfortable. Shortly thereafter both the noise and the vibration abated. Now enjoying a much smoother ride, Shepard told Slayton that the dial-scanning procedure he was supposed to follow was impractical. He had to omit reading the electrical power dials to pay more attention to his oxygen and hydrogen peroxide supply indicators.

The cabin pressure inside Freedom 7 sealed off at 5.5 pounds per square inch, as programmed. Pressed by 6 g at two minutes after launch, Shepard still was able to report "all systems go." The Redstone's engine shut down on schedule at 142 seconds, having accelerated the astronaut to a velocity of 5,134 miles per hour, close to the nominal speed. The trajectory, similar to that of the MR-BD flight, was only one degree off course, which meant a variation of slightly more than a mile in peak altitude. After engine cutoff, Shepard heard the tower-jettison rocket fire and turned his head to peer out the port, hoping that he might see the smoke from the pyrotechnics. There was no smoke, but the green tower-jettison light on his panel assured him that the pylon was gone. Shepard strained in his couch under an acceleration that hit a peak g load of 6.3. Outside the capsule the shingle temperature reached 220 degrees F, but inside the cabin the temperature was only 91 degrees. The astronaut was hardly perspiring in his pressure suit at 75 degrees.

After tower separation, which occurred two minutes and 32 seconds after launch, Shepard disarmed the retrorocket-jettison switch and advised Slayton that his capsule was free from the booster. At three minutes the automatic attitude control system about-faced the capsule to a heatshield-forward position for the remainder of the flight. Momentary oscillations climaxed the turnaround maneuver, whereupon the automatic thrusters cut in for five seconds to steady, or "damp," the capsule into its proper attitude. Now almost at the top of his suborbital trajectory, Shepard went to work on his most important task, determining whether an astronaut could control his spacecraft's attitude.

He began to switch the control system to manual, one axis at a time. First he took over pitch, which he was able to adjust by moving the handcontroller in his right grip forward or backward to give the spacecraft the proper up or down attitude. His first action was to position the spacecraft in the retrofire attitude, tilted 34 degrees above a local horizontal mark. The pitch indicator on Freedom 7 was scribed at 45 degrees, as earlier studies had proposed, but more recent investigations had indicated that 34 degrees was a better angle.

While Shepard was in control of pitch, the automatic system was controlling yaw, or left and right motion, and roll, or revolving motions. When Shepard assumed control of all three axes, he was pleased to find that the feel was about the same as in the procedures trainer, the Mercury simulator. Although he could control his ship well, he was unable to hear the spurting control jets above the noise of his radio. He encountered one small problem while using his hand controller: when he moved his hand to yaw, the wrist seal bearing of his suit bumped into his personal parachute. To make the proper displacement, he had to push hard.

When he tried to carry out another of his flight objectives, observing the scene below him, Shepard immediately noticed that the periscope had the medium gray filter in place. While waiting on the pad, he had used this filter to eliminate the glare of the intermittently bright sunlight and had planned to remove the filter when he retracted the periscope, just before launch. But being otherwise occupied at the time, he had forgotten to make the change. During spacecraft turnaround he tried to remove the filter, but as he reached for the filter knob the pressure gauge on his left wrist banged into the abort handle. He carefully pulled his hand away. After that he forgot about the intensity filter and observed the wondrous sights below through the gray slide. He first tried to estimate the span of his terrestrial vision. The periscope, located two feet in front of him, had two settings, low and high magnification. On low at the 100-mile altitude, there theoretically should have been a field view of about 1900 miles in diameter, and on high, a segment 80 miles in diameter. Shepard was able to distinguish clearly the continental land masses from the cloud masses. He first reported seeing the outlines of the west coast of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. He saw Lake Okeechobee, in the central part of Florida, but could not see any city. Andros Island and the Bahamas also appeared in the scope. Later Shepard would remark that Earth displays flashed before him in his air- lubricated free-axis trainer had been most valuable in helping him to distinguish land masses passing beneath the spacecraft.

As Shepard sped over the peak of his trajectory, now under fully automatic attitude control, he began to notice a slow pitch rate. At this point his flight plan dictated that he switch to the fly-by-wire mode of operation, wherein the astronaut operated the handcontroller to change the position of the capsule, using the hydrogen peroxide jets of the automatic system to effect the changes rather than those of the manual system. Thus Shepard would manually position Freedom 7 for the retrofire that was scheduled to occur shortly after attaining the zenith of his trajectory at 116.5 miles. The astronaut switched to fly-by-wire, but as he started to make a yaw and roll maneuver he noticed that the spacecraft pitch position was low, being 20 to 25 degrees rather than the desired 34 degrees for retrofire attitude. Although he could not remember exactly whether he made a yaw or roll maneuver, he did immediately begin to work on his pitch problem. Then the retrorockets fired, creating a noise that was easily heard but was not as loud as the sound of the ALFA trainer jets. This provided what later astronauts on orbital missions described as "a comforting kick in the pants." Pieces of debris, including a restraining strap, flashed by the capsule portholes as the retropack was jettisoned. Glancing back to the control panel, Shepard saw no confirming sequence light, but Slayton radioed his telemetered knowledge of retropack jettison. So the astronaut pushed the manual override; finally the reluctant light appeared. This was the only failure of an event-sequence light during the MR-3 mission.

While riding down the reentry curve toward a water landing, Shepard again assumed the fly-by-wire mode of control. He later reported that the feel of fly-by-wire was very similar to that of the trainers. Although he had a tendency to overcontrol in the fly-by-wire mode, he had the pleasant feeling of being in full command, for a few minutes at least, of his spacecraft's attitude. Then Shepard allowed the automatic system to regain control and stabilize the spacecraft for reentry. The periscope automatically retracted when Freedom 7 began its plummet into Earth's atmosphere.

On the way down, Shepard tried to look out the awkwardly placed ports to observe the stars. He saw nothing, not even the horizon. These futile attempts at star-finding got him behind in his work. As he commented later, this was the only time during the flight when he did not feel "on top" of the situation and ready for anything. The feeling of indecision passed quickly. He immediately reported when the .05-g light came on, the indication that the g-load buildup was about to commence. He was surprised that the light flashed and zero g ended about a minute ahead of the time he had come to expect from his simulated experience in the procedures trainer. As the reentry loads began to build up to a peak of 11.6 g, the oscillations also increased moderately. As soon as the highest g point had passed and the spacecraft had steadied, Shepard left fly-by-wire and cut in the automatic control system.

Shepard was supposed to give an altimeter reading between 80,000 and 90,000 feet, but since his rate of descent was faster than he expected, he became worried over the deployment of the drogue parachute and forgot to report his altitude. As the altimeter dial slipped past 40,000 feet, the astronaut braced and listened closely for the drogue mortar to fire. He gave the Cape a reading of 30,000 feet, and 9000 feet later the drogue snapped out without a kick. Once his fall was broken the periscope extended, giving a view of the trailing and reassuring drogue. The opening of the air-inlet snorkel valve to accept ambient air pressure at 15,000 feet struck Shepard as coming a trifle late. The antenna canister atop the spacecraft blew off as planned at 10,000 feet, pulling the main parachute with it. Shepard clearly saw and felt it in its initial reefed and partially unfurled condition, which prevented the lines from snapping. Within seconds it spread to its 63-foot diameter, giving the astronaut a reassuring jolt, but one considerably less violent than he had received in centrifuge simulated training. "I was delighted to see it," Shepard remarked with considerable understatement. And well he might be, for at that stage of the flight most of the critical moments had passed. Freedom 7 had closely followed its assigned trajectory and the recovery forces were standing by for its pickup.

Falling toward the water at a rate of 35 feet per second, in contrast to the maximum rate of 6550 feet per second during the powered phase of the flight, Shepard pushed the switch to dump the remaining hydrogen peroxide fuel. Glancing at the dials, he noted another green light, indicating that the landing bag with its four-foot impact skirt had dropped down to cushion the water landing. He reported to the Cape that everything was in order before Freedom 7 dropped below the radio horizon.

The astronaut used the brief remaining time before impact to remove his knee straps, open the faceplate shield, and remove the hose connections of his pressure suit. Then came the thud of water impact, comparable to landing an aircraft on a carrier. Freedom 7 splashed and listed over into the water on the astronaut's right side, about 60 degrees from an upright position. The chutes cast loose automatically on impact to prevent dragging. As the water sloshed over the ports, the spaceman saw the fluoresceing dye spreading over an ever increasing area. Shepard quickly checked the spacecraft interior to see if any leaks had resulted from impact. There were none; it was dry. Now slowly Freedom 7 came to an upright position, taking about a minute's time, and Shepard jubilantly reported to Cardfile 23, the communications airplane, that he was all right.

Helicopters of Marine Air Force Group 26 were waiting. Wayne E. Koons and George F. Cox, pilot and copilot, respectively, of the primary helicopter, had watched the spacecraft for about five minutes on its descent. After splashdown, Koons quickly maneuvered his chopper into position for the retrieval exercise. Glancing at Freedom 7, Cox noted that the high-frequency antenna was not in its correct position as he hooked the cable through the recovery loop. Koons maneuvered the helicopter to lift the spacecraft partially out of the water, awaiting pilot egress. All of a sudden the high-frequency antenna pronged upward, hit and dented the bottom of the helicopter, and broke off. But no damage was done; Shepard told Koons he would debark as soon as Freedom 7's hatch cleared the water.

While Shepard worked himself into a sitting posture, Koons asked again if he was ready. Not yet, he replied; he was still removing his restraint harness and he could still see water against the ports. So the chopper raised the spacecraft further and Shepard unlocked the hatch.

The astronaut then wormed his way over the hatch sill and grappled for his "horse collar" hoisting sling. He soon grasped the line and fitted the sling under his arms. On the way up he brushed against the remainder of the high-frequency antenna, but it was flexible and did no harm. The hovering chopper had no difficulty getting Shepard aboard and in lifting Freedom 7 from the water and transporting it to the carrier Lake Champlain. When Shepard finally stepped on the carrier's deck, only 11 minutes had elapsed since the water landing. About half an hour after he had begun his free-dictation report, Shepard was called to the flag bridge to answer an unexpected telephone call from President Kennedy, who had watched the launching and followed flight details closely via television and who now congratulated the astronaut on his flight into space.

Aboard the Lake Champlain, the immediate task was determining what shape Shepard was in after that brief but awesome excursion through space, with its accompanying high acceleration load, weightlessness, and deceleration loads. Some physiologists had feared that even a few minutes of weightlessness could cause disorientation, while some psychologists were equally apprehensive about what would happen to a space passenger's mind. But Shepard reported that he found his five minutes of weightlessness quite pleasant. In fact, he said, he was already in the weightless state before he realized it. For evidence, he cited a washer that had floated beside his left ear. The weightless Shepard had grabbed for the weightless washer - and missed. Anticipating his debriefing, the astronaut had used an analogy from his professional experience to describe his sensations. The best comparison in his memory was riding in the back seat of an F-100F airplane. "It was painless," he said, "just a pleasant ride." As for any other effects of weightlessness and g stresses, Shepard had demonstrated by assuming direct pilot control that man was quite capable of functioning in space. He experienced no impairment of his faculties. He had reported to Mercury Control with perfect clarity regarding his and the spacecraft's status, and when two physicians, M. Jerome Strong and Robert Laning, made a preliminary postflight physical examination of Shepard aboard the carrier, they found him to be in excellent condition. From beginning to end the flight mission had been almost perfect. The jubilant but technically perfectionist engineers called it only an "unqualified success."

Photo Gallery

---

---

Mercury MR-3 First American view of space Credit: NASA

---

---

Mercury MR-3 Shepard's recovery Credit: NASA

---

• Open-circuit television system in the Mercury-Redstone MR-2 and MR-3 flights - . Nation: USA. Flight: Mercury MR-3. Spacecraft: Mercury.

  At the fifth Mercury Coordination Meeting, the Army Ballistic Missile Agency proposed the installation of an open-circuit television system in the Mercury-Redstone second and third flights (MR-2 and MR-3). The purpose of the system was to observe and relay launch vehicle and spacecraft separation data.

• Third Mercury centrifuge training program - . Nation: USA. Flight: Mercury MR-3. Spacecraft Bus: Mark IV Model 3 Type I. Spacecraft: Mercury Space Suit. The third Mercury centrifuge training program was conducted for the astronauts at the Aviation Medical Acceleration Laboratory. . Additional Details: here....

• Mercury spacecraft No. 7 delivered to Cape Canaveral - . Nation: USA. Flight: Mercury MR-3. Spacecraft: Mercury. Spacecraft No. 7 was delivered to Cape Canaveral for the Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) manned ballistic mission (Shepard)..

• Astronaut personal parachute in the Mercury program. - . Nation: USA. Flight: Mercury MR-3. Spacecraft: Mercury, Mercury Parachute.

  Instruction was provided to the astronauts to develop techniques and procedures for using the personal parachute as an additional safety feature in the Mercury program. This parachute was only used during the Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) mission manned by Alan Shepard.

• Mission rules for the Mercury MR-3 - . Nation: USA. Flight: Mercury MR-3. Spacecraft: Mercury. Mission rules for the Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3 - Shepard's flight) were published. Revisions were issued on February 27, and April 28, 1961..

• 350 correspondents to cover the first manned suborbital flight of Project Mercury. - . Nation: USA. Flight: Mercury MR-3. Spacecraft: Mercury.

  In a NASA Headquarters' note to editors of magazines and newspapers, a procedures and a deadline were established for submitting the applications of accredited correspondents to cover the Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) flight mission. As of April 24, 1961, the deadline date, 350 correspondents were accredited to cover the launch, the first manned suborbital flight of Project Mercury.

• Mercury Redstone launch vehicle No. 7 delivered to Cape Canaveral - . Nation: USA. Flight: Mercury MR-3. Spacecraft: Mercury. Redstone launch vehicle No. 7 was delivered to Cape Canaveral for the Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) mission..

• Mercury crew refresher centrifuge training. - . Nation: USA. Flight: Mercury MR-3. Spacecraft: Mercury. Three astronauts selected for Mercury-Redstone flight (MR-3) were ordered to take refresher course in Navy centrifuge at Johnsville, Pa..

• Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) readiness review. - . Nation: USA. Flight: Mercury MR-3. Spacecraft: Mercury. Spacecraft, mission, and launch vehicle flight safety were reviewed by Space Task Group personnel in preparation for the Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) mission..

• Simulated countdown for Mercury MR-3 - . Nation: USA. Flight: Mercury MR-3. Spacecraft: Mercury. A simulated countdown for the first Mercury-Redstone manned suborbital flight (MR-3) was successfully completed..

• Mercury MR-3 postponed. - . Nation: USA. Flight: Mercury MR-3. Spacecraft: Mercury. Manned Mercury-Redstone (MR-3) launch postponed because of rain squalls in the recovery area..

• Mercury MR-3 - . Call Sign: Freedom 7. Crew: Shepard. Backup Crew: Grissom. Nation: USA. Agency: NASA. Class: Manned. Type: Manned spacecraft. Flight: Mercury MR-3. Spacecraft: Mercury. Duration: 0.0107 days. Apogee: 187 km (116 mi).

  Astronaut Alan B. Shepard, Jr., made the first United States manned space flight in a Mercury spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral atop the Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) vehicle. "Freedom 7" completed the suborbital, ballistic flight without incident in this historical first mission of NASA's Project Mercury. Alan Shepard first American in space, less than a month after Gagarin and only on a 15 minute suborbital flight. Only manned flight with original Mercury capsule design (tiny round porthole and periscope a la Vostok). If NASA had not listened to Von Braun, Shepard would have flown on the MR-BD flight of 24 March, beating Gagarin by three weeks and becoming the first man in space (though not in orbit). Shepard's capsule reached an altitude of 115.696 miles, range of 302 miles,and speed of 5,100 miles per hour. He demonstrated control of a vehicle during weightlessness and high G stresses. Recovery operations were perfect; there was no damage to the spacecraft; and Astronaut Shepard was in excellent condition.

• Shepard awarded NASA's Distinguished Service Medal - . Nation: USA. Related Persons: Kennedy, Shepard. Flight: Mercury MR-3. Spacecraft: Mercury.

  Astronaut Alan Shepard, pilot of the Freedom 7 spacecraft (MR-3) was awarded NASA's Distinguished Service Medal by President John F. Kennedy in a ceremony at the White House. It was followed by an informal parade to the Capitol by the seven astronauts for lunch, and a press conference at the State Department auditorium.

• Kennedy decision to allow MR-3 flight defended. - . Nation: USA. Related Persons: Kennedy. Flight: Mercury MR-3. Spacecraft: Mercury.

  Senator Robert S. Kerr, chairman of the Senate Aeronautical and Space Sciences Committee, told a group at the National Radio and Television Convention that President Kennedy accepted the views of NASA and congressional leaders in approving the manned Mercury-Redstone flight of May 5.

• Mercury Freedom 7 at Paris Air Show. - . Nation: USA. Flight: Mercury MR-3. Spacecraft: Mercury. Until June 4, 1961, the Mercury spacecraft Freedom 7 (MR-3) was displayed at the Paris International Air Show. Some 650,000 visitors received the details on the spacecraft and on Shepard's suborbital flight..

• Biomedical results of the Mercury MR-3. - . Nation: USA. Flight: Mercury MR-3. Spacecraft: Mercury. Biomedical results of the Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3), Shepard's suborbital space flight, were reported in a Washington conference jointly sponsored by NASA, National Institute of Health, and the National Academy of Sciences..

• Mercury Freedom 7 in Rome, Italy. - . Nation: USA. Flight: Mercury MR-3. Spacecraft: Mercury. The Freedom 7 (MR-3) spacecraft was viewed by approximately 750,000 visitors at the Rassegna International Electronic and Nuclear Fair at Rome, Italy..

• Mercury Freedom 7 presented to the Smithsonian - . Nation: USA. Flight: Mercury MR-3. Spacecraft: Mercury. Freedom 7, the Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) spacecraft, was presented by NASA to the National Air Museum of the Smithsonian Institution..