Mercury Project

Alan Shepard headed for debriefing after his suborbital flight

Space

Sixty years since Mercury Redstone 3, the first crewed US space mission

On May 5, 1961, about 45 million US television viewers watched as a single-stage Redstone rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral. Mercury Redstone 3 carried Alan Shepard on a 15-minute flight to become America's first man in space.

John Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth

Space

US pioneering astronaut John Glenn dies

Space pioneer and former US senator John Glenn has died at the age of 95, after a brief stay in hospital. One of the original Mercury Seven astronauts, Glenn was America's first man to orbit the Earth on February 20, 1962.

Space

Checklist from John Glenn's historic Mercury flight up for sale

Nate D Sanders Auctions is offering another vintage bit of Space Race memorabilia – NASA astronaut John Glenn's timeline of flight instructions that flew on his historic 1962 Mercury-Atlas 6 mission

Wally Schirra examines the Hasselblad camera alongside Deke Slayton (L), and Gordon Cooper

Space

First Hasselblad camera and Zeiss lens in space up for auction

The first Hasselblad camera body and Zeiss lens sent into space during the Mercury-Atlas 8 mission in 1962 and the Mercury-Atlas 9 mission the following year are up for auction. The historic camera set, originally purchased over the counter, goes on the auction block on November 13.