During America's first human spaceflight program, Project Mercury, the eyes of the world
often focused on the launch pads at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Deke Slayton: "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, zero, ignition, liftoff."
Alan Shepard: "Roger, liftoff and the clock has started."
This is Freedom 7. The fuel is go. Oxygen is go.
Another centerpiece facility for astronaut training, crew quarters and spacecraft
processing was Hangar S at the Cape.
While not as well-known as the Mercury Control Center and the launch pads, Hangar S
was the location of crucial work supporting NASA's early human spaceflights.
After the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was formed in 1958 the new
agency announced the selection of seven military test pilots who would become
America's first astronauts.
Scott Carpenter,
Gordon Cooper,
John Glenn,
Gus Grissom,
Wally Schirra,
Alan Shepard
and Deke Slayton would soon become household names.
From 1959 to 1963, the 61,300-square-foot Hangar S became a hub of activity as
America prepared for the program to send men on their first trips into space.
Hangar S was built in 1957. It housed operations of the U.S. Naval Research
Laboratory's Project Vanguard. The 75-foot tall rocket was part of the nation's earliest
efforts to launch Earth-orbiting satellites.
In 1959, NASA acquired Hangar S through an agreement with the Department of
Defense and modified it for use for preflight processing. This is where the Mercury
space capsules were received and tested.
By the end of 1960, NASA referred to Hangar S as the "nerve center" of Project Mercury
and home of the Space Task Group's Preflight Operations Division, which had grown to
over 400 technicians and contractors who prepared the Mercury capsules for launch.
The processing of the Mercury spacecraft began with its arrival at the Cape Canaveral
Skid Strip aboard a transport aircraft. It then was transferred to Hangar S for a capsule
"shake-down."
The hangar contained all the necessary facilities, storage and work areas required to
prepare the capsule, including a "White Room." The spotless capsule checkout area
was located in the northeast corner of the high bay.
Across from the White Room was an altitude chamber used for Mercury capsule
environmental control system testing and verification in a space-like environment.
The altitude chamber allowed engineers and technicians to ensure the capsule would
not leak in space, and it also helped verify that the environmental control system along
with other equipment all worked as designed.
Hangar S was the location for final assembly and checkout of the spacecraft's escape
tower. Placed on top of the capsule for launch, the tower was designed to pull the
capsule clear of the launch vehicle in the event of a mishap on the launch pad or during
ascent. It jettisoned from the rocket when a safe altitude had been reached.
Once all assembly, checkouts and testing were complete, the Mercury spacecraft was
transported a short distance to Cape Canaveral's Launch Pad 5 to be mounted atop a
Redstone rocket for suborbital missions or to Launch Pad 14 for mating to an Atlas booster
for the flights to Earth orbit.
While astronauts prepared for their eventual trips into space, a group of chimpanzees
also were undergoing training to ensure humans could withstand the physical strain and
g-forces during a rocket launch.
The chimpanzees' training began at the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center in New
Mexico, but their preparations were completed at Hangar S. The task of responding to
lights by flipping a lever would demonstrate that the chimps could not only survive in
space, but also perform tasks throughout the flight.
The first chimpanzee to fly was named Ham. He launched on Mercury Redstone-2 on
January 31, 1961.
During the 16-minute flight, the chimp flew 157 miles high and 420 miles downrange.
After his recovery, a happy and healthy Ham proved the way was clear for an astronaut
to follow about four months later.
On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American to fly in space during a 15-
minute suborbital flight.
Ike Rigell: "So this was a very significant flight, because the country needed this.
The whole free world needed this flight at this time."
Two months later, Gus Grissom flew a similar suborbital mission aboard the Mercury
capsule he named Liberty Bell 7.
Throughout Project Mercury, Hangar S served as not only a spacecraft preparation
facility but it also was the base of operation for the astronauts after they arrived at the
Cape, especially in the days and weeks just prior to launch.
The astronauts often spent 12-hour days or even longer at Hangar S rehearsing their
missions in the "procedures trainer," an exact mockup of the Mercury capsule's interior.
The simulations would help prepare astronauts and ground controllers for the real thing.
Scott Carpenter: "Climbing into that spacecraft and sitting on the top of the rocket was
something we had simulated time and time and time again."
The hangar also was the location of the crew quarters located on the second floor.
The astronauts slept, ate, suited-up, and underwent medical examinations in the days
and weeks before flight. But, on occasion astronauts described the crew quarters as
simply austere and uncomfortable.
A primary goal of Project Mercury was to determine how humans would respond to trips
into the environment of space, so a regular part of preparations for launch were medical
exams by the astronaut's medical team.
Once the health checkup was complete on launch day, it was time for the complex
process of donning the space suit that would protect the astronaut in the event of a
capsule depressurization.
The next step was the astronaut climbing into an apparatus with a seat similar to the
Mercury spacecraft. Technicians then checked out the suit to ensure it would pressurize
and work as designed.
With the suit up complete, it was time to head to the launch pad. In the glare of
television lights, the astronaut departed Hangar S for the Transfer Van.
The specially outfitted truck would make the trip to Launch Pad 5 or Pad 14 where the
astronaut would prepare for the final countdown.
Scott Carpenter: "5, 4, 3, (ignition) 2, 1, zero."
John Glenn: "Liftoff, the clock is operating. We're underway."
Alan Shepard: "Roger, reading you loud and clear, John."
Three days after John Glenn's historic mission on February 20, 1962, President John F.
Kennedy visited Cape Canaveral to see facilities such as Launch Pad 14 where Glenn
lifted off.
The presidential tour included Hangar S where Mercury spacecraft were being prepared
for future missions.
And during a special ceremony outside the hangar, President Kennedy congratulated
America's first person to orbit the Earth and those who supported his historic mission.
Glenn's mission was followed by three more orbital flights by astronauts Carpenter,
Schirra and Cooper, each with longer missions and increasingly sophisticated capsule
maneuvers and experiments.
Following completion of the Mercury missions, the spacecraft would be returned to
Hangar S for post-flight inspections. Key parts would be removed for study so lessons
learned could be applied to future designs.
After the 22-orbit mission of Gordon Cooper aboard Mercury Atlas-9 in 1963, America's
first human spaceflight program came to an end.
Beginning the next year, Project Gemini would be NASA's bridge from the Mercury
missions, learning how to meet President John F. Kennedy's goal to send astronauts to
the moon.
The first Gemini spacecraft also were processed for flight in Hangar S.
The new program would allow humans to emerge from their spacecraft and begin to
walk in space as well as rendezvous and dock with other orbiting spacecraft.
But as NASA began opening new facilities at the Kennedy Space Center on adjacent
Merritt Island, Gemini processing moved to the Manned Spacecraft Operations Building
now known as the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building.
The interior of the Hangar S high bay was modified later in 1965 with the construction of a
satellite processing area. These spacecraft included the Franco-German Symphonie
communications satellite and the agency's Lunar Orbiter spacecraft that mapped the
moon prior to the Apollo missions taking humans to work on the lunar surface during the
late 1960s and early 1970s.
Hugh Harris: "5, 4, we've gone for main engine start. We have main engine start, we
have liftoff, liftoff of America's first space shuttle and the shuttle has cleared the tower."
As the space shuttle era began in 1981, work at Hangar S supported the new effort.
During the Shuttle Program many types of equipment, such as SCAPE suits, were
maintained and repaired at the Life Support Facility inside Hanger S.
The rubber-coated Self-Contained Atmospheric Protective Ensembles, were worn by
technicians at Kennedy and Cape Canaveral for protection during processing activates
that involved hazardous chemicals such as rocket propellants, or in the event of a spill.
Much of the operational area was used to maintain equipment
associated with the retrieval of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters.
George Diller: "2, 1, zero and liftoff, the final liftoff of Atlantis. On the shoulders
of the
space shuttle, America will continue the dream."
Following STS-135, the final space shuttle mission in July of 2011 work inside Hangar S
came to an end.
Cape Canaveral's Hangar S was America's starting point for human space exploration.
NASA at the Kennedy Space Center now has transitioned from a historically
government-only launch facility to a multi-user spaceport for both federal and
commercial customers.
NASA's team on Florida's Space Coast continues to work to meet the nation's
spacefaring needs for the 21st century.
These advances will include the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System super
rocket to take humans to distant destinations such as Mars and beyond.