Mercury Atlas 9 Audio Excerpt, May 15, 1963

During the final and longest flight of Project Mercury, Mercury-Atlas 9 mission (MA-9) Faith 7 Pilot L. Gordon Cooper Jr. describes the brilliant blue of sunrise beneath the haze layer of the Earth’s atmosphere. As he approaches sunrise, he describes small, luminous, brilliant white particles drifting away from the spacecraft. Cooper describes observing “fireflies” after deploying beacons, which are spherical mission-related equipment with xenon strobe lights.

Catalogue description by the publishing agency.

Record

NASA-UAP-D011

Release

Release 02 · May 22, 2026

Incident

1963-05-15 · Low Earth Orbit

Type

Audio

Verdict

not judged yet

Source

dvidshub.net ↗