Mercury-Redstone 3

Mercury-Redstone 3 carried Alan Shepard aboard Freedom 7 on May 5, 1961, making him the first American to travel into space. The Redstone launched from Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 5 on a suborbital trajectory: the spacecraft rose into space and returned to the Atlantic without completing an orbit. The flight lasted about fifteen minutes and reached an altitude of approximately 116 statute miles. The mission tested whether a pilot could work effectively through launch, weightlessness, and reentry while the spacecraft's control, monitoring, and recovery systems operated together. Shepard evaluated spacecraft attitude control during the short flight. Although retrorockets were carried and tested, this trajectory did not require an orbital braking manoeuvre. Freedom 7's successful flight and recovery established an initial American human-spaceflight capability. It was an important development step toward Mercury's larger objective of placing a person in Earth orbit and returning that person safely.