The Mercury Project consisted of several unmanned missions as well as a number of manned missions.
Unmanned Missions
Manned Missions
- Mercury-Redstone 3
FREEDOM 7
May 5, 1961
Alan B. Shepard, Jr.
15 minutes, 28 seconds
Suborbital flight that successfully put the first
American in space.
- Mercury-Redstone 4
LIBERTY BELL 7
July 21, 1961
Virgil I. Grissom
15 minutes, 37 seconds
Also suborbital; successful flight but the spacecraft
sank shortly after splashdown.
- Mercury-Atlas 6
FRIENDSHIP 7
February 20, 1962
John H. Glenn, Jr.
04 hours, 55 minutes 23 seconds
Three-orbit flight that placed the first American into
orbit.
- Mercury-Atlas 7
AURORA 7
May 24, 1962
M. Scott Carpenter
04 hours, 56 minutes, 5 seconds
Confirmed the success of Mercury-Atlas 6 by duplicating flight.
- Mercury-Atlas 8
SIGMA 7
October 03, 1962
Walter M. Schirra, Jr.
09 hours, 13 minutes, 11 seconds
Six-orbit engineering test flight.
- Mercury-Atlas 9
FAITH 7
May 15-16, 1963
L. Gordon Cooper, Jr.
34 hours, 19 minutes, 49 seconds
Last Mercury mission; completed 22 orbits to evaluate effects of one day in
space.
