In late November 1961, a film crew (most likely from the Department of Suppy) visited Muchea – at around the time of the MA-5 flight. This was the flight before John Glenn’s manned flight. The passenger aboard MA-5 for the two-orbit flight was Enos the ‘Super Chimp’. The flight was a critical test of the Mercury capsule and all systems.
The station was manned and configured as it would be for a manned flight. The Muchea Capcom for MA-5 was astronaut Wally Schirra. (Astronauts Cooper, Shepard and Grissom were deployed to other remote sites.)
Here are some frames taken from the NASA film
– they are arranged into three sections:
Click the pictures below to go to each section
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Inside the T&C building |
Verlort Radar trailer
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External pictures |
With thanks to Mark Gray and Spacecraft Films for the footage used to make these screenshots.
The footage is available on Disc 2 of the Spacecraft Films
excellent “Project Mercury” 6 DVD set.
I am told it is also available
on the CD included with Apogee Books’ Friendship 7 Mission Report.
Screenshots selected, colour-corrected (with varying success) and annotated by Colin Mackellar.