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Mercury-Redstone 4

A suborbital Project Mercury mission that carried Gus Grissom aboard Liberty Bell 7, making him the second American to fly in space.

Mercury-Redstone 4
NASA · Stored JPEG is byte-for-byte pixel-identical after decode to NASA's linked 803x1023 152513main_image_feature_617_ys_full.jpg asset (stored SHA-256 247ea4ad20560a5c2a093d5bc9853673128227e0342665098a5d4f64310858c0; authoritative SHA-256 702a7409147e0b8a4ae451aeed0238e83899665d6ed9964d5112707702aad4ec). The NASA Mercury-Redstone 4: Liberty Bell 7 page identifies this as Gus Grissom being helped into Liberty Bell 7 before launch and credits NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/mission/mercury-redstone-4-liberty-bell-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
Liberty Bell 7MR-4
Name
Mercury-Redstone 4
Status
completed

Details

Astronauts
Description
A suborbital Project Mercury mission that carried Gus Grissom aboard Liberty Bell 7, making him the second American to fly in space.
Destination
Suborbital flight to 118.3 statute miles altitude and 302 statute miles downrange, ending with splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean
End Date
1961-07-21
Launch Site
Outcome
Successful second U.S. human suborbital flight. Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom completed a 15-minute, 37-second flight aboard Liberty Bell 7; the spacecraft was lost after splashdown when its explosively actuated hatch opened prematurely and the capsule sank, while Grissom was recovered safely.
Programs
Start Date
1961-07-21
Vehicle Families

Links

Official Url
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/mercury-redstone-4-liberty-bell-7/

Assets & Meta

Creation Time
June 29, 2026 at 04:59:11 UTC
Updated Time
September 8, 2026 at 00:08:57 UTC
Image
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Space Stations
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