News Archive / Tagged: Freedom 7

• Light this candle! The 60th anniversary of the first American in space

  Matt HaskellMay 5th, 2021

  Sixty years ago today, on May 5, 1961, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard rocketed to space in his Mercury capsule to become the first American and the second human in space.

• US celebrates first National Astronaut Day

  Joe LatrellMay 5th, 2016

  The day was May 5, 1961. Alan Shepard, aided by Gunter Wendt and the rest of the launch pad crew, was strapped into the seat of the most daring vehicle America had constructed—the one-man Mercury space capsule. Moments later, he rocketed to the heavens becoming America's first astronaut crossing into the new frontier of space. The entire sub-orbital trip lasted just 15 minutes.

• Our SpaceFlight Heritage: The flight of Freedom 7 fifty four years ago

  Gregory CecilMay 5th, 2015

  Fifty four years ago today, Alan Shepard Jr. became the first American in space flying aboard the Mercury capsule Freedom 7. Shepard and his ship lifted off atop a Redstone rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 5 and followed by a successful splashdown in the Atlantic after a flight lasting just over […]