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Project Mercury
In January 1960 NASA awarded Western Electric Company a contract for the Mercury tracking network. The value of the contract was over $33 million. Also in January, McDonnell delivered the first production-type Mercury spacecraft, less than a year after award of the formal contract. On February 12, Christopher C. Kraft, Jr. was appointed to head the Mercury operations coordination group...
Timeline of Events
1958
10.7.1958
The U.S. manned space-flight project is renamed Project Mercury.
1959
4.9.1959
Project Mercury: NASA announces the selection of the United States' first seven astronauts, whom the news media quickly dub the "Mercury Seven".
1960
1.21.1960
Little Joe 1B, a Mercury spacecraft, lifts off from Wallops Island, Virginia with Miss Sam, a female rhesus monkey on board.
1961
1.31.1961
Project Mercury: Mercury-Redstone 2
5.5.1961
Project Mercury|The Mercury program: Mercury-Redstone 3
11.29.1961
Project Mercury: Mercury-Atlas 5 Mission – Enos, a chimpanzee, is launched into space. The spacecraft orbited the Earth twice and splashed-down off the coast of Puerto Rico.
1962
5.24.1962
Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the ''Aurora 7'' space capsule.
10.3.1962
Project Mercury: Sigma 7 is launched from Cape Canaveral, with Astronaut Wally Schirra aboard, for a six-orbit, nine-hour flight.
1963
5.15.1963
Project Mercury: The launch of the final Mercury mission, Mercury-Atlas 9 with astronaut L. Gordon Cooper on board. He becomes the first American to spend more than a day in space.