The Explorers' Club Special

Operation AXIOM: The Space Race—The 60th Anniversary of Mercury-Atlas 9
15-16 May 1963: Mercury 9 lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, with Gordon Cooper aboard the Mercury capsule Faith 7 atop an Atlas rocket; the twenty-two-orbit flight exceeded all previous American spaceflights, combined, & was the first to send back T.V.; the Faith 7 splashed down in the Pacific, Mercury's most accurate splashdown, & was recovered by the U.S.S. Kearsarge.

Wayback Machine: № DCCCLXXXIII, "The Space Race—The 59th Anniversary of Mercury-Atlas 9"

Commentary: Mercury-Atlas 9 was the sixth & final manned flight of Project Mercury. There was a push for Alan Shepard to fly a second time, an orbital mission to exceed M.A.-9 in duration, but the Faith 7's flight pushed the Mercury hardware to its limits, demonstrating the necessity to move on to the more advanced Gemini & Apollo spacecraft. Mercury-Atlas 9 was the final Mercury flight, but we're not yet ready for the Wayback Tour of Project Mercury as we are still circling back to cover the unmanned test flights we have previously missed due to confusion over the Mercury-Redstone 4 to Mercury-Atlas 5 sequence.