Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Mercury 3 Mission Statistics Mission Name: Mercury MR-3 Call Sign: Freedom 7 Number of Crew Members: 1 Launch: May 5, 1961 14:34 UTC Cape Canaveral Complex 5 Landing: May 5, 1961 14:49:28 UTC Duration: 15 minutes, 28 seconds Number of Orbits: None Mercury 3 was a U.S Mercury program manned space mission launched on May 5, 1961 using a Redstone rocket. The Mercury capsule was named "Freedom 7" and performed a suborbital flight, piloted by astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space. Shepard became the first astronaut to return to Earth with his ship as the Russian cosmonauts had to parachute away from theirs during landing. The flight lasted 15 minutes, and the spacecraft traveled 300 miles from its launch point, ascending over 100 miles. Crew Alan Shepard Mission Parameters Mass: 1290 kg Maximum Altitude: 186.2 km Range: 486 km Launch Vehicle: Redstone rocket Previous Mission: Mercury 3 was the first US manned space mission. Mercury Next Mission: Mercury 4 This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.