What was the name of the chimp that was sent into space in Project Mercury mission MR-2 in January 1961?
Mercury-Redstone 2 Mercury-Redstone 2 Mercury-Redstone 2 (MR-2) was the penultimate test flight of the Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle prior to the first manned American space mission in Project Mercury. It was launched at 16:55 UTC on January 31, 1961 from LC-5 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Mercury spacecraft No. 5 carried Ham the Chimp, a chimpanzee, on a suborbital flight, landing in the Atlantic Ocean 16 minutes and 39 seconds after launch. The previous Mercury-Redstone mission, MR-1A, flew a trajectory that was too steep with accelerations too high for a human passenger. MR-1A had climbed to its programmed apogee of about 130 miles (209
Animals in space His flight demonstrated the ability to perform tasks during spaceflight. A little over 3 months later the United States sent Alan Shepard into space. Enos the chimp became the first chimpanzee in orbit on 29 November 1961, in another Mercury capsule, an Atlas rocket, Mercury-Atlas 5. On 9 March 1961 the Soviet Union launched the Korabl-Sputnik 4 that carried a dog named Chernushka, some mice, frogs and, for the first time into space, a guinea pig. All were successfully recovered. France flew their first rat (Hector) into space on 22 February 1961. Two more rats were flown in October 1962.