Sep 1 1959

From The Space Library

USAF Atlas ICBM officially declared operational and taken over by the Strategic Air Command, at Vandenberg AFB.

McDonnell Aircraft Corporation reported to NASA the results of several company-funded studies of follow-on experiments using Mercury spacecraft with heatshields modified to withstand lunar reentry conditions. In one experiment, a Centaur booster would accelerate a Mercury spacecraft plus a third stage into an eccentric earth orbit with an apogee of about 1,200 miles, so that the capsule would reenter at an angle similar to that required for reentry from lunar orbit. The third stage would then fire, boosting the spacecraft to a speed of 36,000 feet per second as it reentered the atmosphere.

McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, Project Mercury Capsules, Follow On Experiments, Engineering Report 6919 (September 1, 1959), p. 6.0-1.