Mercury MA-2

HMNS displays Mercury spacecraft #6, launched on the Mercury MA-2 mission. As indicated by the mission's name, this was the second production Mercury spacecraft launched on an Atlas booster; MA-1 (displayed at the Kansas Cosmosphere) was the first, although it exploded about a minute after lift-off, making MA-2 the first successful launch of a production Mercury spacecraft.

Additional information is available in NASA's online version of This New Ocean, the history of Project Mercury. The pre-launch mission objectives can be read at Detailed Test Objectives for Mercury/Atlas Vehicle 67-D (NASA Mission MA-2), and there's a nice photo of the spacecraft and launch vehicle on the pad as well as a series of launch photos.

MA-2 and the Gemini G4C suit are both located in a back room, into which the gallery has two windows, one for MA-2 and one for the spacesuit. Since the two artifacts are located right next to each other, it is possible to see the "other" artifact by peeking in a window at just the right angle.

This spacecraft is NASM catalog ID A19710064000.

I have a number of Project Mercury-related resources.

As of now, I have not yet sorted through all of my pictures of MA-2, 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.