Mercury MA-1

The Cosmosphere displays Mercury spacecraft #4, launched on the Mercury MA-1 mission. This mission saw the first launch of a production Mercury spacecraft on an Atlas booster (although the Big Joe mission launched a Mercury boilerplate with an ablative heat shield on an Atlas).

Alas, MA-1 was an ill-fated mission, with the Atlas blowing up shortly aft lift-off. For an overview of the MA-1 mission, see the KSC MA-1 page. Additional information is available in NASA's online version of This New Ocean, the history of Project Mercury. NASA's full report can be read at Post Launch Report for Mercury-Atlas No. 1, and the report from Convair (the manufacturer of the Atlas booster) can be read at Flight Test Report, Mercury/Atlas MA-1 (Atlas 50D), 29 July 1960. See S-67-19582 for a photo of MA-1 as it was reassembled during NASA's post-flight investigation.

As of now, I have not yet sorted through all of my pictures of MA-1, but some other page references this location. Thus, this is a "place holder" version right now, with only the pictures actually referenced. Come back some time later to see if I've finished up, or drop me an email to request me to prioritize the rest of these pictures.