Mercury-Redstone 4 was the second United States human spaceflight, on July 21, 1961. The suborbital Project Mercury flight was launched with a Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle, MRLV-8. The spacecraft, Mercury capsule #11, was nicknamed Liberty Bell 7. It was piloted by astronaut Virgil "Gus" Grissom. The spaceflight lasted 15 minutes 30 seconds, reached an altitude of more than 102.8 nautical miles (190.4 km), and flew 262.5 nautical miles (486.2 km) downrange, landing in the Atlantic Ocean. The flight went as expected until just after splashdown, when the hatch cover, designed to release explosively in the event of an emergency, accidentally blew. Grissom was at risk of drowning, but was recovered safely via a U.S. Navy helicopter. The spacecraft sank into the Atlantic and was not recovered until 1999.
Mission parameters Mass: 1 286 kg Maximum altitude: 190.39 km Range: 486.15 km Launch vehicle: Redstone rocket
Spacecraft The MR-4 spacecraft, Mercury capsule #11, was designated to fly the second crewed suborbital flight in October 1960. It came off McDonnell's St. Louis production line in May 1960. Capsule #11 was the first Mercury operational spacecraft with a centerline window instead of two portholes. It was closer to the final orbital version than was Alan Shepard's Freedom 7. Dubbed Liberty Bell 7 by its pilot, it featured a white, diagonal, irregular paint stripe starting at the base of the capsule and extending about two-thirds toward the nose, emulating the crack in the famed Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Explosive hatch
Liberty Bell 7 also had a new explosive hatch release. This would allow an astronaut to exit the spacecraft quickly in the event of an emergency. Emergency personnel could also trigger the explosive hatch from outside the spacecraft by pulling on an external lanyard. Both the pop-off hatch and the lanyard are standard features of ejection seats used in military aircraft, but in the Mercury design, the pilot still had to exit the craft himself, or be removed by emergency personnel. The original exit procedure was to climb out through the antenna compartment, after removing a small pressure bulkhead. This was a difficult and slow procedure. Removal of an injured or unconscious astronaut through the top hatch would be nearly impossible. The original side hatch was bolted shut with 70 bolts and covered with several spacecraft shingles, making it a slow process to open the original hatch. McDonnell Aircraft engineers devised two different quick-release hatches for the Mercury spacecraft. The first had a latch, and was used on the chimpanzee Ham's MR-2 and Shepard's MR-3 missions. The second design was an explosive release hatch. The quick release latching hatch weighed 69 lb (31 kg), too much of a weight addition to use on the orbital version of the spacecraft. The explosive hatch design used the 70 bolts of the original design, but each quarter-inch (6.35 mm) titanium bolt had a 0.06 in (1.5 mm) hole bored into it to provide a weak point. A mild detonating fuse (MDF) was installed in a channel between the inner and outer seal around the periphery of the hatch. When the MDF was ignited, the resulting gas pressure between the inner and outer seal would cause the bolts to fail in tension. There were two ways to fire the explosive hatch during recovery. On the inside of the hatch was a knobbed plunger. The pilot could remove a pin and press the plunger with a force of 5 or 6 lbf (25 N). This would detonate the explosive charge, which would shear off the 70 bolts and propel the hatch 25 ft (7.6 m) away in one second. If the pin was left in place, a force of 40 lbf (180 N) was required to detonate the bolts. An outside rescuer could blow open the hatch by removing a small panel near the hatch and pulling a lanyard. The explosive hatch weighed 23 lb (10 kg).
Window The new trapezoidal window on Liberty Bell 7 replaced the two 10 in (250 mm) side portholes that were on Freedom 7. The Corning Glass Works of Corning, New York designed and developed the multilayered panes that comprised the new window. The outer pane was 0.35 in (8.9 mm) thick Vycor glass. It could withstand temperatures of 1,500 to 1,800 °F (820 to 980 °C). The inner pane was made of three inner glass panels bonded to form a single inner pane. One panel was a 0.17 in (4.3 mm) thick sheet of Vycor, while the others were tempered glass. This new window assembly was as strong as any part of the spacecraft pressure vessel.
Controls The manual controls of Liberty Bell 7 incorporated a new rate stabilization control system. This allowed fine control of spacecraft attitude movements by small turns of the hand controller. Previously a lot of jockeying of the device was needed to maintain the desired attitude. This rate damping, or rate augmentation system, gave finer and easier handling qualities and a redundant means of firing the pitch, yaw, and roll thrusters. Before the Mercury-Redstone 4 mission, Lewis Research Center and Space Task Group engineers had determined that firing the posigrade rockets into the booster-spacecraft adapter, rather than in the open, developed 78 percent greater thrust. This achieved a greater spacecraft-booster separation through a kind of "pop-gun" effect. By using this technique, the spacecraft separated at velocity of about 28.1 ft/s (8.6 m/s) rather than 15 ft/s (4.6 m/s) using the old procedure. The Mercury-Redstone 4/Liberty Bell 7 mission would take advantage of this new procedure. Additional hardware changes to Liberty Bell 7 were a redesigned fairing for the spacecraft-Redstone adapter clamp-ring and additional foam padding added to the head area of the contour couch. The fairing changes and additional foam were used to reduce vibrations the pilot experienced during the boost phase of flight. The spacecraft instrument panel was rearranged to provide a better eye scan pattern.
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