America's First Spaceship: Project Mercury (Infographic)
Karl Tate, SPACE.com Infographics Artist
Date: 16 February 2012 Time: 07:06 AM ET
The Mercury space capsule was NASA's first manned spaceship and launched the first Americans into orbit in the early 1960s. The one-person spacecraft was used in three suborbital flights and three orbital flights before being replaced by the two-person Gemini capsules. See how the Mercury capsule worked in the SPACE.com Infographic above.
- Project Mercury: Photos of NASA's 1st Manned Spaceflights
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