Mercury-Jupiter

Mercury-Jupiter (center) compared with Redstone (left) and Atlas (right). Mercury-Jupiter was a proposal, and not launched

Mercury-Jupiter was a Jupiter missile with a Mercury capsule and was proposed as a suborbital launch vehicle for Project Mercury in October, 1958; however, it was never flown, and was canceled in July 1959 due to budget constraints.^[1] It would have been capable of launching the Mercury spacecraft to a 300-mile (500-km) apogee at 10,000 mph (14,000 km/h) and 1,500 miles (2,500 km) downrange. However, when this trajectory was used on earlier biological test flights, the animals received 40 g during reentry,^{[citation needed]} so perhaps the Jupiter would not have been used to its full capability on manned flights. The MJ-2 flight was planned as a maximum dynamic pressure test to qualify the Mercury capsule's production using a chimpanzee aboard.^[1]

See also

• List of space launch system designs

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Astronautix.com: Mercury-Jupiter MJ-2