Curious about Mercury Spacecraft Assignments

I'm kind of curious as to how individual spacecraft were assigned to
missions. (My source for the following is the excellent "Field Guide to
American Spacecraft" --
http://aesp.nasa.okstate.edu/fieldgu...dex/home1.html )

the manned Mercury assignments were
Flight Spacecraft
MR-3 7
MR-4 11
MA-6 13
MA-7 18
MA-8 16
MA-9 20

also, why was there a 12B, and not a 12. (Was it perhaps that 12 was
modified to have an ablative heatshield?) I also noted that MA-4 and MA-5,
both orbital unmanned missions, used spacecraft with lower numbers than the
second MR flight. (8 and 9 respectively.)

Also, does anyone have any idea how Gemini spacecraft numbers were assigned?

On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 12:57:32 -0500, "Ami Silberman"
wrote:

I'm kind of curious as to how individual spacecraft were assigned to
missions. (My source for the following is the excellent "Field Guide to
American Spacecraft" --
http://aesp.nasa.okstate.edu/fieldgu...dex/home1.html )

the manned Mercury assignments were
Flight Spacecraft
MR-3 7
MR-4 11
MA-6 13
MA-7 18
MA-8 16
MA-9 20

also, why was there a 12B, and not a 12. (Was it perhaps that 12 was
modified to have an ablative heatshield?) I also noted that MA-4 and MA-5,
both orbital unmanned missions, used spacecraft with lower numbers than the
second MR flight. (8 and 9 respectively.)

Also, does anyone have any idea how Gemini spacecraft numbers were assigned?


When a capsule was modified after initial manufacture, it was assigned
a letter after the capsule number. Capsule 12 was first assigned as an
alternate MA-6 capsule. Then it was converted for a possible MA-10
mission and designated Capsule 12A. It was returned to McDonnell
Aircraft in Feb. 1962 to be modified for a 1-day manned mission and
given the designation Capsule 12B for a possible MA-13 mission.

There is a lot of background information about the Mercury program in
the following NASA PDF documents. The documents list changing capsule
assignments. They may answer some of your questions:


-Project Mercury Status Report #9 for Period Ending Jan. 31, 1961

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1974076470.pdf


-Project Mercury Status Report #12 for Period Ending Oct. 31, 1961

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1975064554.pdf


-Project Mercury Status Report #14 for Period Ending Apr. 30, 1962

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1991074179.pdf


-Project Mercury Status Report #19 for Period Ending Jul. 31, 1963

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1991074178.pdf



Rusty Barton