more at
“Documents the first American manned space mission. Covers the training, preparation, launching, and recovery of astronaut Alan B. Shepard, Jr. for the first Project Mercury sub-orbital flight.”
Reupload of a previously uploaded film with improved video & sound.
Project Mercury playlist:
Public domain film from NASA, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).
from “FLIGHT PLAN FOR THE MR-3 MANNED FLIGHT”
By Christopher C. Kraft, Jr.
The countdown started at 8:30 a.m. EST on May 4, 1961… A built-in hold of approximately 15 hours was called at T – 6 hours 30 minutes (where T indicates the time of predicted lift-off). During this time the various pyrotechnics were installed in the spacecraft and the hydrogen peroxide system was serviced.
The countdown was resumed… at 11:30 p.m. EST on May 4, 1961…
The countdown was continued after the hold at T – 2 hours 20 minutes and, except for some minor holds, which probably resulted from all concerned being extremely careful during the insertion of the Astronaut, the countdown continued until T – 15 minutes. At this time it was determined that photographic coverage of the launch and flight could not be obtained because of low clouds which were being blown into the launch area. The weather forecaster predicted that the visibility would improve rapidly within the next 30 to 45 minutes, and it was decided to hold the launch until more favorable camera coverage could be obtained. During this hold it was determined that one of the inverters supplying 400-cycle power to the launch vehicle was not regulating properly. The test conductor of the launch vehicle felt that this inverter should be replaced and this replacement would require a hold of approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour. At this time the Astronaut was consulted and he indicated that he was fine; the aeromedical people agreed that the Astronaut was in good condition and, therefore, it was decided to continue on and make a replacement of the inverter and pick up the count as soon thereafter as possible. The countdown was recycled to T – 35 minutes and resumed after a hold of 86 minutes. Again at T – 13 minutes it was necessary to hold the launch countdown in order to make a final check of the computer being used to give real time trajectory information and impact prediction. After this point, the countdown proceeded smoothly through to the time of lift-off. The total hold time during the launch countdown was 2 hours 34 minutes…
The liftoff occurred at 934 am EST on May 5, 1961.
The first critical time after lift-off occurred at 1 minute 24 seconds. At this time the spacecraft and launch vehicle passed through the point of maximum dynamic pressure (that is, the point in the exit trajectory at which the spacecraft and launch vehicle are subjected to the largest aerodynamic load)…
The shutdown of the launch-vehicle engine occurred at T + 2 minutes 22 seconds, and, at the same time, a signal was to be given to the spacecraft to separate the escape tower. Spacecraft separation occurred 10 seconds later by means of the separation of the Marman clamp and the firing of the posigrade rockets. Both of these operations were to be manually initiated by the Astronaut if the automatic systems had failed. This backup action by the Astronaut was to be taken in the initiation of all major spacecraft events. After a 5-second period during which the motions of the spacecraft were damped, a turnaround maneuver was initiated in which the spacecraft was yawed 180° so that the spacecraft was proceeding with the heat shield forward. The pitch attitude was also regulated to an attitude of 14 1/2 degress from the local horizontal. At T + 3 minutes 10 seconds, the Astronaut turned off the automatic control systems and took over manual control of the spacecraft attitude…
Thirty seconds after initiation of the retrofire sequence, firing of the three retrorockets took place. Each rocket was to burn for approxhnately 10 seconds and they were fired sequentially at 5-second intervals. At T + 6 minutes 14 seconds (60 seconds after the firing of the first retrorocket), the retropackage jettisoned. It should be pointed out that, although firing of the retrorockets would have little effect on the Redstone suborbital flight, this same procedure would be followed during an orbital flight…
The recovery operations for this flight were as good as could ever be hoped for in any Mercury operation…
,
