Mercury-Atlas 5 (MA-5) was launched on November 29, 1961, with Enos, a chimpanzee, aboard. The craft orbited the Earth twice and splashed down about 200 miles (320 km) south of Bermuda, and Enos became the first primate from the United States and the third great ape to orbit the Earth.
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| MA-5 launch cover with a SpaceCraft illustrated cachet, postmarked at PAFB on November 29, 1961. |
By November 1961, the Soviet Union had launched Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov into orbit during the Vostok 1 and Vostok 2 manned orbital flights while the United States had managed only suborbital ones. At that time NASA was still debating placing a chimpanzee in orbit as part of the Mercury-Atlas subprogram, with NASA headquarters questioning the wisdom of the Manned Spacecraft Center launching another unmanned Mercury mission. The NASA Public Affairs Office issued a press release prior to the flight, stating "The men in charge of Project Mercury have insisted on orbiting the chimpanzee as a necessary preliminary checkout of the entire Mercury program before risking a human astronaut."
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| Photo: Enos, the space chimpanzee, rocketed into space and made three earth orbits on November 29, 1961. |
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| Photo: Staff carrying ENOS into a van for a trip to the launching pad at Cape Canaveral. |
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| MA-5 launch cover with Goldcraft cachet, postmarked at Port Canaveral on November 29, 1961. |
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| Photo: ENOS suited for the space flight on November 29, 1961. |
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| MA-5 launch cover with Sarzin cachet, postmarked at Port Canaveral on November 29, 1961. |
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| Photo: MA-5 launch on November 29, 1961. |
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| Cover postmarked at Grand Turk Island, one of the Mercury space flight tracking station, on November 29, 1961. Signed by Joe Frasketi who produced and serviced this cover. |
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| Beautiful hand painted cachet of Enos on a Project Mercury first day cover, by artist Chris Henderson. |
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| Photo: Enos returned to Cape Canaveral after the space flight. |
(Reference from
Mercury-Atlas 5)
