Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle

Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle

Mercury-Redstone 2 launch carrying Ham, a chimpanzee, on 31 January 1961.
Function	Human-rated sub-orbital launch vehicle
Manufacturer	Chrysler Corporation
Country of origin	United States
Size
Height	25.41 m (83.38 ft)
Diameter	1.78 m (5.83 ft)
Mass	30,000 kg (66,000 lb)
Stages	1
Capacity
Payload to sub-orbital trajectory
Mass	1,800 kg (4,000 lb)
Launch history
Status	Retired
Launch sites	Launch Complex 5, Cape Canaveral, Florida
Total launches	6
Success(es)	5
Failure(s)	1
First flight	21 November 1960
Last flight	21 July 1961
Type of passengers/cargo	Mercury spacecraft
Single stage
Powered by	1 Rocketdyne A-7
Maximum thrust	350 kN (78,000 lbf)
Specific impulse	215 s (2.11 km/s)
Burn time	143.5 s
Propellant	LOX/ethyl alcohol
[edit on Wikidata]

The Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle, designed for NASA's Project Mercury, was the first American crewed space booster. It was used for six sub-orbital Mercury flights from 1960–1961; culminating with the launch of the first, and 11 weeks later, the second American (and the second and third humans) in space. The four subsequent Mercury human spaceflights used the more powerful Atlas booster to enter low Earth orbit.

A member of the Redstone rocket family, it was derived from the U.S. Army's Redstone ballistic missile and the first stage of the related Jupiter-C launch vehicle; but to human-rate it, the structure and systems were modified to improve safety and reliability.