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| A Titan II N-5 launch cover from "Sarzin", postmarked at Cape Canaveral with a hand cancel on September 12, 1962. |
The Titan II N-5, launched from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 15 on September 12, 1962, was the first successful Titan II flight to carry and deploy decoys alongside its Mark 6 reentry vehicle. The test demonstrated the missile's ability to deliver its reentry vehicle while also deploying decoy objects intended to complicate an enemy's ability to distinguish the warhead from other objects during reentry. N-5 was an important early demonstration of the Titan II's payload and penetration capabilities, and its success contributed to the development of the missile that would later be adapted as the launch vehicle for Project Gemini.
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A Titan II N-5 launch cover from "Sarzin", postmarked at Cape Canaveral with a hand cancel on September 12, 1962.
President John F. Kennedy visited Cape Canaveral on September 11, 1962, one day before the Titan II N-5 launch on September 12. |
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| Photo: President John F. Kennedy at Rice University in Houston, Texas, on September 12, 1962, moments before delivering his address. In the speech, he emphasized the importance of the United States assuming a leading role in space exploration, famously declared, “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
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