Based on the original audio recordings

Eleven weeks after NASA's first crewed flight, Gus Grissom became the second American and third human in space, performing another suborbital crewed flight ahead of the first orbital mission the following year. An otherwise successful mission was marred after splashdown when the hatch blew after Grissom had completed post-flight checks and was waiting for the recovery helicopter to move into place. As the capsule started taking on water, he performed an emergency egress into the water, from where a second helicopter moved in to pick him up as the primary struggled unsuccessfully to recover the capsule. A little over two weeks later, the Russians would launch Gherman Titov aboard Vostok 2, keeping the pressure on NASA to catch up in the early days of the Space Race.

This site allows you to explore transcripts of radio communications between Gus Grissom aboard Liberty Bell 7 and the NASA personnel back in Florida, along with photographs of the mission.

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Call signs

The Mercury capsule's callsign through the mission is Liberty Bell 7 or just 7; the primary CAPCOM (capsule communicator) was Alan Shepard at the Cape; Deke Slayton in the Blockhouse is identified as STONY, and CHASE 1 is another astronaut flying chase in an F-106 plane. CARDFILEs were aircraft assigned to assist communication during re-entry, recovery helicopters are identified as HUNT CLUB, and ATS is a Mercury range station aboard a US Navy ship in the Atlantic close to the landing area.

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