Skip to content
SPACE NOWHistory

The past behind what's next.

Object

Mercury capsule, MA-6

The spacecraft flown on the first American orbital flight — small enough that the pilot put it on rather than climbed into it.

  • Revision: 1
  • Dates: 1962-02-20 (day precision)
  • Last reviewed: 2026-08-14
  • Status: Preserved in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum collection
  • asset-library: asset_7aa7a802ac531eb76b2b

The object

Full frame first: the source before any crop, zoom or annotation.

The Mercury capsule flown on MA-6, a small bell-shaped spacecraft with a scorched heat shield and a narrow hatch, photographed in museum lighting.
Present day Preserved in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum collection.Credit: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum; Transferred from the National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationSource: canonical item pageRights: CC0; AUTO_USABLE (evidence recorded 2026-08-09)Transforms: autorotate — EXIF orientation applied where present; resize — fit within 640 px wide, aspect preserved, no enlargement; encode — AVIF quality 55

What this object shows

The scale of the first American orbital vehicle, and the condition of a heat shield that has actually returned through the atmosphere.

Orientation

Role: Single-seat orbital spacecraft

Chronology

  1. day precisionMercury capsule, MA-6 enters the record.

Related records

  • contemporary with

    What was being computed by hand while the first Americans orbited?

    Confidence: high · 1962-02-20 (day precision)

  • relates to

    Heat shields, one inspectable and one not.

    Confidence: high · 1962-02-20 (day precision)

Inspect the record1 assertion, each with its source

  • Mercury capsule, MA-6 is held in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum collection; the rendition shown here is exported from that catalogued record with its credit and rights basis recorded.

    Source class: museum collection recordSmithsonian National Air and Space Museum collectionView the source

CorrectionsNone recorded

No corrections recordedThis record has not been corrected since it was published.