13 Facts About Mercury-Redstone 3

Mercury-Redstone 3'spard's mission was a 15-minute suborbital flight with the primary objective of demonstrating his ability to withstand the high g-forces of launch and atmospheric re-entry.

Mercury-Redstone 3'spard named his space capsule Freedom 7, setting a precedent for the remaining six Mercury astronauts naming their spacecraft.

Mercury-Redstone 3 tested the retrorockets which would return later missions from orbit, though the capsule did not have enough energy to remain in orbit.

Mercury-Redstone 3 had selected Alan Shepard as the primary pilot, with John Glenn and Gus Grissom as his backups; the other members of the Mercury Seven continued to train for later missions.

Mercury-Redstone 3'spard was subjected to a maximum acceleration of 6.

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Mercury-Redstone 3 then took manual control of yaw along with pitch, yawing the spacecraft to the left and then to the right to bring it back in line.

Mercury-Redstone 3 found that when he tried to reach the filter knob to change it, the wrist of his spacesuit would bump the handle by his left hand that would manually activate the launch escape system.

Mercury-Redstone 3 reported identifying major features such as the east coast of Florida, Lake Okeechobee, and Andros Island, the largest island of the Bahamas, but cloud cover made it difficult for him to make out other Bahamian islands.

Mercury-Redstone 3'spard began adjusting his pitch nose downward toward the proper retrofire attitude of –34 degrees, but he only got to around orbit attitude before the first retrorocket fired.

Mercury-Redstone 3 then got his pitch further down to about –25 degrees in time for the second and third retrorockets.

Mercury-Redstone 3'spard had assumed it was still set that way and deliberately adjusted his pitch high to compensate.

Mercury-Redstone 3'spard heard the noise of the jettison and saw one of the straps fly past a window, but the confirmation light did not turn on.

Mercury-Redstone 3'spard reported that fly-by-wire felt smooth and gave the sensation of being fully in command of the craft, before letting the automatic systems briefly take over to reorient the capsule for reentry.