Recorded mission
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National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Redstone MRLV | Mercury-Redstone 1
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Recorded mission coverage
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Mission brief
The flight at a glance.
Mercury-Redstone 1 (MR-1) was the first Mercury-Redstone uncrewed flight test in Project Mercury and the first attempt to launch a Mercury spacecraft with the Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle. Intended to be an uncrewed sub-orbital spaceflight, it was launched on November 21, 1960 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The launch failed in abnormal fashion: immediately after the Mercury-Redstone rocket started to move, it shut itself down and settled back on the pad, after which the capsule jettisoned its escape rocket and deployed its recovery parachutes. The failure has been referred to as the "four-inch flight", for the approximate distance traveled by the launch vehicle.
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Planned timings relative to the target. These steps do not indicate live progress.
A flight sequence has not been published for this mission.