046 MERCURY ATLAS

The Mercury program is the name of the American spaceflight program, led initially by NACA and finally by NASA, which was carried out from 1958 to 1963. It was the first space flight program implemented by NASA, and its main goal was to launch an American astronaut into orbit around the Earth. The program also assumed that the launched spacecraft with the astronaut would go around the Earth. Another goal was to study the behavior of the human body in outer space as closely as possible. The program was also based on the already available launchers as much as possible, which resulted in the use of such rockets as: Redstone, Little Joe or Atlas. Under the Mercury program, many sub-orbital and orbital flights were performed, including six manned flights. It is worth adding that as part of this program, the Mercury 3 mission with Alan Shepard on board was completed on May 5, 1961. It was the first manned sub-orbital flight in the history of the USA and the second in the history of astronautics. From the point of view of the implementation of the human moon landing program, it was the first, but a milestone, step towards this goal.