Mercury Atlas D
A Mercury Atlas D taking flight. (NASA)
In order to launch the Mercury
spacecraft into Earth orbit, a rocket with higher thrust than the Redstone
was needed. NASA chose the Atlas rocket, an ICBM built by Lockheed. It
had enough thrust to place a one-man Mercury spacecraft into low-earth
orbit.
But the early tests of the Atlas at Cape
Canaveral were disastrous. Because of a troublesome
guidance system, the Atlas would often veer off course soon after
liftoff. The range safety officer would be forced to destroy the rocket
by setting off bricks of TNT carried inside for that purpose.
After countless test flights, the Atlas was finally
ready for manned flight. On February 20, 1962, John Glenn rocketed
into space atop the Atlas D rocket. His highly successful flight
lasted for three orbits. He was later followed by Scott Carpenter,
Wally
Schirra, and Gordon Cooper.
Later, in the 1980s, when the Air Force's ICBM fleet
was disbanded, NASA acquired several surplus Atlases and a new series
of
Atlas launches began. The Atlas design spawned two further
improvements,
the Atlas II and the Atlas III (which, ironically enough, had engines
built
in Russia).
Mercury
Atlas D Specifications
Country: USA
Organization: NASA
Length: 25.0 meters
Diameter: 3.1 meters
Mass: 117,370 kilograms