Mercury-Redstone 1 Launch failure (MR-1)

The video shows the Mercury-Redstone rocket firing and then immediately shutting its engine off. Shortly after, the launch escape tower got the signal that the engine had shut down, so it detached itself. Then the drogue chute, followed by the main and reserve chutes, were ejected due to the rocket thinking it had finished its course.

From Wikipedia:

"Mercury-Redstone 1 (MR-1) was the first Mercury-Redstone mission in the Mercury program and the first attempt to launch a Mercury spacecraft with the Mercury-Redstone launch vehicle. Intended to be an unmanned sub-orbital flight, it was launched on November 21, 1960 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The launch failed in a peculiar fashion which has been referred to as the "four-inch flight"."

Category:

Education

Tags:

• NASA
• Project
• Mercury
• Redstone
• MR-1
• Launch
• Failure
• Funny
• Hilarious
• Rocket
• Four
• Inch
• Flight

[vogonford]

I'm shocked that so many of you have never seen a troll in its wild habitat.

[Taylorh161]

did the astronaught in it die

[vogonford]

@Taylorh161 i don know did he died

[csadler]

@Taylorh161 No astronaut was in it.

[marinekillab]

Gene Kranz (one of the misson control guys) said that they had to figure out what to do to with the rocket since the engines fuel and O2 tanks were still pressurised and the chutes could tople the rocket over if the wind picked up. One guy actually suggested that they should shoot holes in the tanks to depressurise them.

Needless to say they probably smacked the shit out of him and decided to wait till the next day. When the batteries ran out the tanks depressurised.

[Mal1234567]

@langleygm so is your spelling

[deathrooster14]

@marinekillab A bullet would not have caused an explosion.

[dadduk123]

@vogonford there wasn't anyone in it

[aj0446]

lol right stuff

[Morkvonork]

@Taylorh161 It was unmanned

[langleygm]

@Taylorh161 this specific flight was an unmanned one. It was know as the "popped cork" incident and was one of the most embarresing failures of the program

[radgata]

Tom Kelly (LEM Chief Eng.) explained in his book “Moon Lander” that the incident was triggered by a technician who trimmed off a quarter of an inch off one of the two umbilical connector prong, thus deviating the “as-built” configuration from the “as-designed” one. The engine was instructed to shut down if one of the two connectors was pulled off before the other one – which happened. This lead NASA to establish a robust process on Configuration Management control ever since.

[radgata]

Please expand vogonford`s video description to understand why the escape tower launched and the parachutes deployed while the rocket was still on the launch pad.

To add to marinekillab`s comment, Gene Kranz in his book “Failure is not an option” mentioned that this suggestion lead to the first rule of Mission Contol: If you don`t know what you`re doing, don`t do anything. “

[tokus64]

no he`s alive. the parachute opened