Mercury-Atlas
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| Atlas MA-6 | ||
|---|---|---|
 First Manned Mercury-Atlas |
Mercury-Atlas was a subprogram of Project Mercury which comprised most of the flights and tests using the Atlas launch vehicle. The Atlas was also used for one Mercury flight under the Big Joe subprogram.
[edit] Mission Numbering
The official Mercury mission numbering designation was a two letter designation which corresponded to the launch vehicle type, followed by a dash then a 1 or two character designation of the flight/test number. So the official designation for the first U.S. manned orbital spaceflight was MA-6.
[edit] Atlas Launch Vehicle Numbering
The Atlas launch vehicles use for Project Mercury were numbered using a 2 or 3 digit number followed by a -D indicating that the missiles were the "D" version of the Atlas.
[edit] Mission and Launch Vehicle pairings
The missions flown in Mercury-Atlas were:
- MA-1 using Atlas launch vehicle "50-D"
- MA-2 using Atlas launch vehicle "67-D"
- MA-3 using Atlas launch vehicle "100-D"
- MA-4 using Atlas launch vehicle "88-D"
- MA-5 using Atlas launch vehicle "93-D"
- MA-6 using Atlas launch vehicle "109-D"
- MA-7 using Atlas launch vehicle "107-D"
- MA-8 using Atlas launch vehicle "113-D"
- MA-9 using Atlas launch vehicle "130-D"
