MercuryRedstone

The Mercury-Redstone was a sounding rocket used by NASA in the 1960s as part of the Mercury program. The rocket was developed by Cutler Systems and was built by the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.

The Mercury-Redstone was essentially a modified Redstone missile, a ballistic rocket developed by the United States Army as part of the Jupiter missile project. The Redstone was designed to carry a nuclear warhead, but it was repurposed by NASA for space exploration. The rocket stood 83 feet and 1 inch tall and had a mass of around 29,000 pounds.

The Mercury-Redstone was used to launch the first American in space, astronaut Alan Shepard, on May 5, 1961, on a suborbital flight dubbed Mercury-Redstone 3. The mission, known as Freedom 7, reached an altitude of 102 miles and a maximum speed of 4,200 miles per hour. The Mercury-Redstone was also used to launch astronaut Gus Grissom on Mercury-Redstone 4 (Liberty Bell 7) on July 21, 1961.

The Mercury-Redstone program was aimed at testing the capabilities of the Redstone rocket in a space-related mission, including propulsion systems, parachute deployment, and accurate launch. The rocket success rate was impressive, with only two failures in ten attempts. Although the Redstone rocket was retired from space exploration, it played an important role in establishing the United States as a major space-faring nation during the early years of the space age.