Cape Canaveral, Florida
Launch Complex 5
A modest pad used to launch the Redstone rockets that carried NASA's first two astronauts on suborbital flights at the dawn of Project Mercury.
2
Missions
28.43°N, 80.57°W
Coordinates
Connected records
The missions
Every mission in the archive tied to Launch Complex 5.
Freedom 7
Launch
May 5, 1961
Status
Successful
Duration
15 minutes, 28 seconds
Crew
Freedom 7 made Alan Shepard the first American in space, a 15-minute suborbital flight that came just three weeks after the Soviet Union launched the first human into orbit and helped set the stage for President Kennedy's challenge to land astronauts on the Moon.
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Liberty Bell 7
Launch
July 21, 1961
Status
Successful
Duration
15 minutes, 37 seconds
Crew
Liberty Bell 7 made Gus Grissom the second American in space on a suborbital flight nearly identical to Freedom 7, but the mission became famous for a dramatic near-disaster after splashdown when the capsule's hatch blew open prematurely and the spacecraft sank.
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Other launch sites
Related locations
Explore the other places connected to this part of the archive.
Launch Complex 14
Cape Canaveral, Florida
The pad that launched every orbital Mercury-Atlas mission, sending the first Americans, including John Glenn, into orbit around Earth.
Launch Complex 19
Cape Canaveral, Florida
The pad used for every crewed Gemini-Titan launch, sending ten two-person crews into orbit to develop the rendezvous and spacewalk techniques Apollo would depend on.
Launch Complex 34
Cape Canaveral, Florida
The pad where the Apollo 1 fire claimed three astronauts' lives during a launch rehearsal, and where, nearly two years later, Apollo 7 lifted off to prove the redesigned spacecraft was safe.
Launch Complex 37B
Cape Canaveral, Florida
A Saturn IB pad used for uncrewed Apollo hardware testing, including the first flight of the Lunar Module.
Launch Complex 39A
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
The most historic launch pad in spaceflight history. Every crewed Saturn V Moon mission, the first and final Space Shuttle flights, and modern commercial crew launches have all lifted off from Pad A.
Launch Complex 39B
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
Pad 39A's sister pad, used for later Apollo and Space Shuttle missions and now the launch site for NASA's Artemis Moon program.
Space Launch Complex 40
Cape Canaveral, Florida
A Cape Canaveral pad leased by SpaceX, used to launch commercial cargo missions to the International Space Station.
Baikonur Cosmodrome
Kazakhstan
The Russian launch site that sent the International Space Station's first modules and first resident crew into orbit, beginning more than two decades of continuous human presence in space.
Kennedy Space Center
Merritt Island, Florida
NASA's primary launch site for human spaceflight, home to Launch Complex 39 and the agency's current and future crewed missions.