Project Mercury - Launch Vehicles

Launch Vehicles

The Mercury program used three launch vehicles:

• Little Joe (height: 55 ft) – for launch escape system tests at altitude. Eight unmanned flights were made, two of which carried live monkeys. It was a solid-fuel rocket designed specially for Project Mercury and theoretically able to carry a spacecraft to an altitude of 100 miles (161 km) on a ballistic curve. Together with a Mercury boilerplate it was used to test the escape tower and abort procedures.
• Redstone (height 83 ft) – 1-stage rocket for suborbital (ballistic) flights. Four unmanned flights were made, one of which carried a chimpanzee. After that it was used for the first two manned flights. The Jupiter rocket was originally considered for the suborbital launch vehicle, but were replaced with the Redstone in July 1959 due to budget constraints.

• Atlas D (height 94 ft) – 2-stage rocket for orbital manned flight. Six unmanned test flights were made, four suborbital and two orbital one of which carried a chimpanzee. After that it was used for four manned orbital flights. The Atlas D rocket required extra strengthening in order to handle the increased weight of the Mercury spacecraft beyond that of the nuclear warheads they were designed to carry.

The Titan missile was also considered for use for later Mercury missions; however, the Mercury program was terminated before these missions were flown. Instead, the Titan was used for the Gemini program which followed Mercury. The Mercury program also used a Scout rocket for a single flight, Mercury-Scout 1, which was intended to launch a small satellite designed to evaluate the worldwide Mercury Tracking Network. Launched on November 1, 1961, however, the rocket was destroyed by the Range Safety Officer after 44 seconds of flight.