Mercury-Atlas 5
Mercury - Atlas 5 (MA -5) was a mission under the U.S. Mercury program with the chimpanzee Enos on board.
Mission
On February 24, 1961, the capsule arrived at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on and it was followed by 40 weeks of flight preparation, the longest during the entire Mercury program. The capsule was first designed for a suborbital test flight, then for a suborbital test flight with a chimpanzee on board, then for an unmanned, flight lasting three rounds and finally for the mission with the Enos flew. MA -5 should simulate the flight of MA -6.
Enos ' name comes from the Hebrew and means human. Enos itself comes from Cameroon (originally Chimp # 81) and was acquired on 3 April 1960 by the U.S. Air Force. At the time of launch, he weighed 17 kg and was five years old. Enos replacement chimpanzees were Duane, Jim, Rocky and Ham ( flew with Mercury - Redstone 2).
Five hours before the start Enos was placed with his space suit in the capsule. The launch took place at 15:08 UTC on 29 November 1961. At the end of the first cycle of the ground crew noticed that the clock was running too fast in the capsule by 18 seconds. When flying over Cape Canaveral, the clock has been synchronized again. Shortly after the transfer ship in the Atlantic Ocean received the first signs of rising temperature in the capsule. These were confirmed by the transfer station in the Canary Islands.
The temperature rose from 18 ° C to 26 ° C. This also led to the rise of Enos body temperature of 37.3 ° C to 38.1 ° C. However, the body temperature does not increase further, the resulting medical observer concluded that the refrigeration system to work again. Further dropped for a metal strip in a fuel line of an engine roll. Therefore, the capsule slowly drifted from its intended orbit, before a corrective thrust brought them back again. This was repeated nine times before firing the re-entry thrusters and then again before re-entry itself allows more fuel was consumed than planned. Towards the end of the second orbit, the physicians Enos wanted to send a third orbit, but the engineers were concerned that the fuel would not be enough. Flight Director Chris Kraft finally decided to go for re-entry after the second round.
In the recovery area, the waiting destroyer USS stormes and USS Comtpon and a Martin P5M. The capsule was spotted by aircraft three minutes before splashdown at an altitude of 1,500 meters. This remained until the arrival of the USS stormes an hour and 15 minutes later and documented the splashdown southeast of Bermuda. The capsule was taken aboard the destroyer and blasted controls the hatch. Enos was in good health.
With this successful flight, the Mercury capsule was qualified for manned orbital flights.
Whereabouts
Enos died on November 4, 1962 to diarrhea, which was triggered by bacterial dysentery. Until two months before his death Enos was under constant medical supervision. A connection with his space flight was loud pathologists of Holloman Air Force Base, where he died not. The Mercury capsule # 9 can in the North Carolina Museum of Life and Science in Durham, North Carolina, to the public.
Swell
- Http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=1961-033A
- Template: Internet resource / maintenance / access date not in ISO format template: Internet resource / Maintenance / date is not in the ISO FormatMA -5 ( 22). Kennedy Space Center, September 27, 2000, accessed on 22 December 2008 (English ).