Redstone MRLV | Mercury-Redstone 1
Status: Failure | Launched: Nov 21, 1960 14:00 UTC
Launch Provider & Rocket
- Provider: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Government)
- Rocket: Redstone MRLV — Redstone family
Mission
Mercury-Redstone 1 (MR-1) was the first Mercury-Redstone uncrewed flight test in Project Mercury and the first attempt to launch a Mercury spacecraft with the Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle. Intended to be an uncrewed sub-orbital spaceflight, it was launched on November 21, 1960 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The launch failed in abnormal fashion: immediately after the Mercury-Redstone rocket started to move, it shut itself down and settled back on the pad, after which the capsule jettisoned its escape rocket and deployed its recovery parachutes. The failure has been referred to as the "four-inch flight", for the approximate distance traveled by the launch vehicle.
- Type: Test Flight
- Orbit: Suborbital (Sub)
Launch Site
- Pad: Launch Complex 5
- Location: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA
- View on map
Program
- Mercury — Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. (Wikipedia)
Launch data sourced automatically from the Launch Library 2 API. Last refreshed: 2026-10-07T05:01:38.698063+00:00.