Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle

The Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle was the booster NASA designed for Project Mercury and the first American crewed space booster. It flew six sub-orbital Mercury missions in 1960 and 1961, including the launches of the first and, eleven weeks later, the second Americans in space, after which the more powerful Atlas booster took Mercury crews into low Earth orbit. It belonged to the Redstone rocket family and was derived from the Army's Redstone ballistic missile and the first stage of the Jupiter-C, with the structure and systems modified for safety and reliability. Its engine was the Rocketdyne A-7 of the latest military Redstone, burning liquid oxygen with ethyl alcohol, and an automatic in-flight abort sensing system could trigger the capsule's escape system if the rocket failed.