Mercury Capsule Saved by Escape Tower in Mercury-Atlas 3 Launch Failure 1961 NASA

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more at http://scitech.quickfound.net/astro/nasa_news.html The launch of Mercury-Atlas 3 (MA-3) on April 25, 1961. This unmanned test flight was terminated by the range safety officer after 43.3 seconds due to failure of the launch vehicle. The Launch Escape System (LES, aka Escape Tower) pulls the Mercury spacecraft free and parachutes carry the capsule to a safe landing. Public domain film from NASA, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Atlas_3 Mercury-Atlas 3 (MA-3) was an unmanned spaceflight of the Mercury program. It was launched unmanned on April 25, 1961 at 16:15 UTC, from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Mercury capsule contained a robotic "mechanical astronaut". Mercury spacecraft No. 8 and Atlas No. 8 100-D were used in the mission. The mission was terminated by the range safety officer after 43.3 seconds due to failure of the launch vehicle to follow its roll and pitch programs. Although the Atlas was destroyed, considerable benefit was derived from the flight test. The launch escape system saved the Mercury spacecraft from destruction. The capsule flew to an apogee of 7.2 km and downrange only 1.8 km. The flight of the Mercury capsule lasted 7 minutes and 19 seconds, most of that time descending on its parachute. The spacecraft was recovered some 20 minutes after launch in the Atlantic Ocean and reused on the next flight (MA-4) as spacecraft No. 8A. Two months after the MA-3 flight, the Atlas's guidance system programmer was discovered buried in mud on a beach not far from the launch pad and analyzed. NASA and Convair engineers came to the conclusion that vibration during liftoff had caused a pin connector in the programmer to come loose, resulting in loss of control. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_escape_system A Launch Escape System (LES) is a system connected to the crew module of a crewed spacecraft and used to quickly separate the crew module from the rest of the rocket in case of emergency. The LES is designed for use in situations where there is an imminent threat to the crew, such as an impending explosion... History The idea of using a rocket to remove the capsule from a space vehicle was developed by Maxime Faget in 1958.[1] The system, using the tower on the top of the space capsule to house rockets, was first used on a test of the Project Mercury capsule in March 1959. Historically, LESes were used on American Mercury and Apollo spacecraft. Both designs used a solid-fuel rocket motor. The Mercury LES was built by the Grand Central Rocket Company in Redlands, California (which later became the Lockheed Propulsion Company). Apollo used a design that had many similarities to the Mercury system. Launch Escape Systems continue to be used on the Russian Soyuz and Chinese Shenzhou programme spacecraft. The SpaceX-designed Dragon spacecraft uses a liquid fueled launch abort system integrated to the capsule to minimize spacecraft costs. The LES may be used while the launch vehicle is still on the launch pad, or during its ascent... The Russian Vostok and American Gemini spacecraft both made use of ejection seats. The European Space Agency's Hermes and the Russian Buran space planes would also have made use of them if they had ever flown with crews. As shown by Soyuz T-10a, an LES must be able to carry a crew compartment from the launch pad to a height sufficient for its parachutes to open. Consequently, they must make use of large, powerful (and heavy) solid rockets. The Soyuz launch escape system is called CAC or SAS, from the Russian/transliterated Russian Система Аварийного Спасения or Sistema Avariynogo Spaseniya, meaning emergency rescue system. The Space Shuttle was fitted with ejection seats for the initial "shakedown" flights, but these were removed once the vehicle was deemed operational. Following the Challenger disaster, all surviving orbiters were fitted to allow for crew evacuation through the main hatch, though this could only be used when the shuttle was in a controlled glide (the crew would have had to reach the exit from their seats and jump out, then return to earth via parachute). The Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle being developed to follow the shuttle program will use a Mercury and Apollo-style escape rocket system, while an alternative system, called the Max Launch Abort System (MLAS), has been floated to use existing solid-rocket motors integrated into the bullet-shaped protective launch shroud. Under NASA's Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program Blue Origin has been awarded $3.7 million for development an innovative 'pusher' LAS... Orbital Sciences Corporation intends to sell the LAS it was building for the Orion spacecraft to future commercial crew vehicle providers in the wake of cancellation of the Constellation project...