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Mercury-Redstone 3

The first United States human spaceflight, a suborbital Project Mercury mission that carried Alan Shepard aboard Freedom 7.

Mercury-Redstone 3
NASA · Stored JPEG is a resized/re-encoded rendition of NASA's 284663main_Shepard_Launch_full.jpg asset: the stored 1115x1500 image and NASA's 1041x1401 asset show the same full Freedom 7 liftoff composition, with normalized decoded comparison correlation 0.9837 (stored SHA-256 a5c09a7b4256220239e7e2838de9973d207510e246cf8d5cfec7b423384af1b1; authoritative SHA-256 4d77c2b1fb1b5ed11b1529d5b2e841dcf49e5b815854b5462e32f397fdc4a5da). NASA's Launch of Freedom 7 page identifies Alan Shepard being launched atop a Mercury-Redstone rocket and credits NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/launch-of-freedom-7/. 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
Freedom 7MR-3
Name
Mercury-Redstone 3
Status
completed

Details

Astronauts
Description
The first United States human spaceflight, a suborbital Project Mercury mission that carried Alan Shepard aboard Freedom 7.
Destination
Suborbital flight to 116.5 statute miles altitude and 303 statute miles downrange, ending with splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean
End Date
1961-05-05
Launch Site
Outcome
Successful first U.S. human spaceflight. Alan B. Shepard Jr. completed a 15-minute, 28-second suborbital flight aboard Freedom 7, reaching 116.5 statute miles altitude and 303 statute miles downrange before splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.
Programs
Start Date
1961-05-05
Vehicle Families

Links

Official Url
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/mercury-redstone-3-freedom-7/

Assets & Meta

Creation Time
June 29, 2026 at 04:50:03 UTC
Updated Time
September 8, 2026 at 00:08:56 UTC
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