Fergie's Tech Blog

15 May 1963: The Last Mercury Mission Lauches

Mercury 9 was the last U.S. Mercury spaceflight manned space mission, launched on May 15, 1963 from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The capsule was named Faith 7 and it completed 22 Earth orbits piloted by astronaut Gordon Cooper. The Atlas rocket was #130-D, and the Mercury spacecraft was #20.

The flight of Sigma 7 had been so nearly perfect that some at NASA thought America should quit while it was ahead and make MA-8 the last Mercury mission, and not risk the chance of future disaster. They thought NASA had pushed the first-generation Mercury hardware far enough, and taking more chances on another longer mission were not warranted.

They thought it was time to move on to the Gemini program. In addition, all of the Soviet single-seat Vostok spacecraft launched after Vostok 1 lasted for more than a day, thus the Mercury 9 flight would bring the Mercury spacecraft up to the same level as that of the Soviets.

posted by Fergie @ 5/14/2006 10:01:00 PM