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Mercury-Redstone 1 Launch failure (MR-1)

vogonford0 HN recommenders · 2012–2017
305K views · news · evergreen · Uploaded 2011-05-23

Footage of the failed Mercury-Redstone 1 launch, where the engine cut off almost immediately after liftoff. The escape tower and parachutes then deployed because the rocket thought the flight was over.

Cited as the canonical footage of the famous four-inch flight, usually when discussing aborted launches.

Space exploration & spaceflightHistory of computing

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3 comments from Hacker News

@mmcnickle2012 · in “Mercury-Redstone 1 - The four inch flight”

A great little documenary (0:15h long) about the MR-1 launch, with an emphasis on the testing and preparation that went into the flight. Shows footage of the failed launch and the subsequent successful launch: [LINK] If you're only interesting in footage of the failed launch: [VIDEO]

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@Crito2013 · in “Falcon 9 GEO Transfer Mission”

An interesting case is Mercury-Redstone 1 which aborted right after takeoff . This wasn't on purpose of course.. [VIDEO] The wiki page is a pretty interesting read: [LINK]

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@hcrisp2017 · in “SpaceX Halts Rocket Launch 10 Seconds Before Planned Liftoff”

It wasn't an abort, but the Mercury-Redstone 1 had a "T-plus" stop time [0]. It attempted to launch and the engine shut down immediately after lift off. It didn't explode, the escape rocket jettisoned, the capsule deployed its drogue, and the the rocket settled back on the pad untethered [1]. It came to be referred to as the "four-inch flight". After considering some risky ways to deal with the fully-fueled rocket, flight control ultimately decided to wait until the LOX boiled off. Chris Kraft declared, "That is the first rule of flight control. If you don't know what to do, don't do anything." [0] [LINK] [1] [VIDEO]

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