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| A Project FIRE 1 launch cover from "SpaceCraft Swanson", postmarked at Cape Canaveral with a hand cancel on April 14, 1964. |
Project FIRE 1 (Flight Investigation of the Reentry Environment) was a NASA high-speed reentry experiment designed to simulate the conditions of an Apollo spacecraft returning from the Moon. Its instrumented reentry vehicle measured aerodynamic and radiative heating, heat-shield performance, and communications blackout, providing critical flight data used in the development and qualification of the Apollo Command Module’s heat shield. FIRE 1 was essentially NASA's first opportunity to obtain actual flight data at lunar-return speeds. Its 32½-minute flight successfully measured the intense heating experienced by the reentry vehicle.
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| A Project FIRE 1 launch cover from "Sarzin", postmarked at Cape Canaveral with a machine cancel on April 14, 1964. |
