
- This event has passed.
55th Anniversary of Mercury-Redstone 2 Launch
January 31, 2016

Mercury-Redstone 2 (MR-2) was the penultimate test flight of the Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle prior to the first crewed American space mission in Project Mercury. It was launched at 16:55 UTC on January 31, 1961 from LC-5 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Mercury spacecraft No. 5 carried “Ham the Chimp”, a chimpanzee, on a suborbital flight, landing in the Atlantic Ocean 16 minutes and 39 seconds after launch. Monkeys had been flown into space before, but Ham was the first higher primate to test a spacecraft.
Leave a Reply