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Mercury-Atlas 8

Mercury-Atlas 8, also known as Sigma 7, flew Walter Schirra on a six-orbit Project Mercury mission to evaluate spacecraft and astronaut performance during an extended orbital flight.

Mercury-Atlas 8
NASA · Stored JPEG is a resized/re-encoded rendition of NASA's exact 33-s63-00695.jpg asset (stored 1024x734 SHA-256 94198fb36561e94faabdd92d345806b994e04b7d5faa7fa8ca329ff43107cc7f; authoritative 1041x747 SHA-256 4ab2220b60af62c895377e7e05f033a9210c9694ec01559b485a634329ffc351). The NASA page identifies this as Walter “Wally” Schirra leaving Hangar S for the pad for Mercury-Atlas 8 and credits NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/schirra-leaves-hangar-s-pad/. NASA's current Images and Media Usage Guidelines state NASA content is generally not copyrighted, while separately identified third-party material remains protected; commercial use must not imply NASA endorsement, and NASA logos and identifiers are protected: https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-brand-center/images-and-media/. This is an asset-level provenance and conservative reuse statement, not a blanket license. · Source
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Identity

Aliases
Sigma 7MA-8Mercury Atlas 8
Name
Mercury-Atlas 8
Status
completed

Details

Astronauts
Description
Mercury-Atlas 8, also known as Sigma 7, flew Walter Schirra on a six-orbit Project Mercury mission to evaluate spacecraft and astronaut performance during an extended orbital flight.
Destination
Earth orbit at approximately 175.8 × 100 statute miles for six revolutions, followed by splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
End Date
1962-10-03
Launch Site
Outcome
Successful third U.S. crewed orbital flight. Walter M. Schirra completed six Earth orbits aboard Sigma 7 during a 9-hour, 13-minute, 11-second mission that evaluated extended-duration spacecraft and astronaut operations beyond Mercury’s original three-orbit design. The capsule splashed down accurately in the Pacific Ocean, and Schirra was recovered aboard USS Kearsarge.
Programs
Start Date
1962-10-03
Vehicle Families

Links

Official Url
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/mercury-atlas-8-sigma-7/

Assets & Meta

Creation Time
June 29, 2026 at 05:23:28 UTC
Updated Time
September 8, 2026 at 00:29:57 UTC
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