Mercury-Atlas 2

Mercury - Atlas 2 ( MA-2 ) was an unmanned suborbital test flight as part of the Mercury program.

With this mission, they wanted to test especially the behavior of the re-entry capsule under the worst flight termination conditions. In addition, the Atlas rocket was to show that they could achieve the required margin coordinates. This requires a special, used only for this mission Atlas was used. She had a special reinforcing tape to prevent failure as the previous flight Mercury - Atlas 1.

The flight was successful and the capsule could be rescued by a helicopter 24 minutes after splashdown in the Atlantic. It can be seen today in the Museum of Natural Science, Houston, Texas.

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