Mercury-Atlas 5 (MA-5) was launched on November 29, 1961, carrying Enos, a chimpanzee. The spacecraft completed two orbits around the Earth before splashing down approximately 200 miles (320 km) south of Bermuda, making Enos the first primate from the United States and the third great ape to orbit the Earth.
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| A MA-5 cover from "SpaceCraft" is postmarked at Patrick Air Force Base (PAFB) on November 29, 1961. |
By November 1961, the Soviet Union had successfully launched Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov into orbit with the Vostok 1 and Vostok 2 missions, while the United States had only conducted suborbital flights. At that time, NASA was still deliberating on sending a chimpanzee into orbit as part of the Mercury-Atlas subprogram, with headquarters questioning the logic behind another unmanned Mercury mission from the Manned Spacecraft Center. The NASA Public Affairs Office issued a press release ahead of the flight, emphasizing that "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, was launched into space and completed three orbits around the Earth on November 29, 1961. |
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| Photo: Staff members transporting ENOS to a van for the journey to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. |
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| A MA-5 cover featuring a Goldcraft cachet, postmarked at Port Canaveral on November 29, 1961. |
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| Photo: ENOS dressed in his space flight suit. |
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| A MA-5 "Sarzin" cover postmarked at Port Canaveral on November 29, 1961. |
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| Photo: MA-5 launch on November 29, 1961. |
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| A cover postmarked at Grand Turk Island, which served as one of the tracking stations for the Mercury space flight, on November 29, 1961. It is signed by Joe Frasketi, who produced and serviced this cover. |
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| This exquisite hand-painted cachet features Enos, the first chimpanzee to orbit the Earth, on a Project Mercury first day cover, created by artist Chris Henderson. |
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| Photo: Enos back at Cape Canaveral after his space flight. |
(Reference from
Mercury-Atlas 5)
