An American launch vehicle family derived from the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile, the first U.S. ICBM. Its Mercury-Atlas variant carried John Glenn on Friendship 7 in February 1962, the first American orbital spaceflight, and later Atlas-Agena and Atlas-Centaur variants launched planetary probes and reconnaissance satellites for decades.
Facts
Vehicle ClassMedium-lift expendable launch vehicle 2 ManufacturerConvair (General Dynamics) 2 First Flight DateDate of the first crewed Mercury-Atlas flight, Friendship 7; the Atlas missile itself first flew in 1957. StatusRetired in its original ICBM-derived configurations; its name and stage-and-a-half heritage continued through Atlas II and III before evolving into the unrelated-airframe Atlas V. 2 Classification
Vehicle ClassCrewed Spacecraft Launch Vehicle 1 Status
Status (category) Connections
Associated With
Has Vehicle Class
Operated By
The Atlas launch vehicle family's Mercury-Atlas variant carried John Glenn on Friendship 7 in February 1962, the first American orbital spaceflight, flown as a NASA program (the airframe itself was built by Convair/General Dynamics, which has no entity in this atlas).
Source Encyclopedia Astronautica
In the Other Atlases
Manufactured By
Also in Business Atlas: the manufacturer of this subject.
Also in Business Atlas: the manufacturer of this subject.
Also in Business Atlas: the manufacturer of this subject.
Sources
1. NASA History Office
National Aeronautics and Space Administrationhttps://www.nasa.gov/mission/mercury-atlas-6-friendship-7/
An Atlas launch vehicle propelled a Mercury spacecraft into Earth orbit and enabled astronaut John Glenn to circle Earth three times.
atlas-rocket, entity description, vehicle kind (crewed-spacecraft)
Its Mercury-Atlas variant carried John Glenn on Friendship 7 in February 1962, the first American orbital spaceflight, and later Atlas-Agena and Atlas-Centaur variants launched planetary probes and reconnaissance satellites for decades.
View the Source 2. Encyclopedia Astronautica
http://astronautix.com/a/atlas.html
The Atlas rocket, originally developed as America's first ICBM, was the basis for most early American space exploration and was that country's most successful medium-lift commercial launch vehicle.
- Operated By: NASA, Encyclopedia Astronautica: Atlas launch vehicle family entry
Atlas (rocket family) (Wikipedia)
In Group: Early American Missile-Derived and Small Launchers, Lead sentenceQuote, In Group: Early American Missile-Derived and Small Launchers, Lead sentence
Atlas is a family of US missiles and space launch vehicles that originated with the SM-65 Atlas.
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