Friday, April 10, 1992

Aurora 7

  1962-019A


Mercury spacecraft 18 was assigned to the Mercury-Atlas 7 (MA-7) mission. The pilot was Lt. Cdr. Scott Carpenter, USN.

A 76 cm balloon was released on a 30-m long line from the nose, to measure air drag and reflectivity, but it failed to inflate and jettison. The balloon mass was 0.2 kg and tether was 3 kg; associated equipment had a mass of 2 kg. Two balsa block liners 0.08 x 0.16m in size (one orange/black, one yellow/black) and `numerous' small 6mm colored aluminized mylar disks were also ejected.

Carpenter carried out a ground flare visibility experiment, a horizon definition test, and photography of the airglow layer.

The Mercury landed in the Atlantic Ocean at 19 29 N, 64 05 W.


MA-7 
 

DateTimeEventOrbit  

1962 May 24  1245:16  Range zero time 
 1245:16  Launch by Atlas 107D 
 1247:24  Booster sep 
 1247:49  LES sep 
 1250:26  SECO 
 1250.30  Atlas 107D sep  161 x 264 x 32.5 (TEC) 
 1250:34  Posigrade burn 6.4m/s  160 x 288 x 32.5 (TEC) 
   154 x 260 x 32.5 (RAE) 
 1423:16  Balloon release 
 1559  Balloon jettison failed 
 1718:26  Retrofire 130W 32N 160 km  
 1719:27  Retropack jettison 
 1730:00  Entry 
 1736  Drogue parachute deployed
 1737:04  Main parachute deployed
 1741:21  Landed in Atlantic 
 2352  Recovered by USS Intrepid 

No comments:

Post a Comment

These Are Not My Beautiful Stories

  Summary: The chapters within are outlines for both future stories I’ve got planned (in the case that I never get around to writing them) a...