Archive record · video

NASA-UAP-D011, Mercury Atlas 9 Audio Excerpt, May 15, 1963

Source label

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Catalog date

2026-05-22

Record type

video

Record summary

During the final and longest flight of Project Mercury, Mercury-Atlas 9 mission (MA-9) Faith 7 Pilot L. Gordon Cooper Jr. describes the brilliant blue of sunrise beneath the haze layer of the Earth’s atmosphere. As he approaches sunrise, he describes small, luminous, brilliant white particles drifting away from the spacecraft. Cooper describes observing “fireflies” after deploying beacons, which are spherical mission-related equipment with xenon strobe lights.

This is archive metadata, not a transcript. Catalog dates may refer to a release or collection rather than the event itself.