Mercury Project Summary

Description

This document presents a summary of the planning, preparation, experiences, and results of Project Mercury and includes the results of the fourth United States manned orbital flight conducted on May 15 and 16, 1963, are also included. The papers are grouped into four main technical areas: The space-vehicle development, mission support development, flight operations, and mission results. The performance discussions contained in the various papers for the concluding Mercury mission form a continuation of the information previously published for the three manned orbital flights and the two manned suborbital flights. Although this document, to a limited degree, summarizes the results of the previous manned flights, the formal postflight reports published for these earlier missions should be consulted for greater detail. The material presented in this document has been prepared in a short. period of time. It reflects the close cooperation and intense efforts of the authors, the staff editors, and the printers, all of whom are to be commended for their dedicated efforts. FOREWORD 01 Project Review 02 Project Support from NASA I-SPACE VEHICLE DEVELOPMENT 03 Spacecraft Systems Development and Performance 04 Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle Development and Performance 05 Mercury-Atlas Launch Vehicle Development and Performance 06 Reliability and Flight Safety II MISSION SUPPORT DEVELOPMENT 07 Trajectory Analysis 08 Worldwide Network Support 09 Operational Support from the Department of Defense 10 Astronaut Training 11 Aeromedical Preparation III-FLIGHT OPERATIONS 12 Special Flight Experiments 13 Flight Data Reporting 14 Spacecraft Preflight Preparations 15 Flight Control Operations 16 Recovery Operations 17 Astronaut Performance IV-MISSION RESULTS 18 Aeromedical Observations 19 Observations of Space Phenomena 20 Astronaut's Summary Flight Report V-APPENDIXES