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spacecraft. NASA set the deadline for proposal submission as December 11, 1958.

The three military services were invited to send one man each to the Space Task Group to perform liaison duties for the manned spacecraft project. These posts were filled in January 1959 by Lt. Colonel Martin Raines, Army; Lt. Colonel Keith Lindell, Air Force; and Commander Paul Havens, Navy.

The Space Task Group placed an order for one Atlas launch vehicle with the Air Force Missile Division, Inglewood, California, as a part of a preliminary research program leading to manned space flight. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Headquarters required that the Air Force construct and launch one Atlas I launch vehicle to check the aerodynamics of the spacecraft. It was the intention to launch this missile about May 1959 in a ballistic trajectory. This was to be the launch vehicle for the Big Joe reentry test shot, but plans were later changed and an Atlas Model D launch vehicle was used instead.

The manned satellite program was officially designated Project Mercury.

Less than 18 months after the first flight, an Atlas launch vehicle was launched 6,300 miles downrange from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

A scale model of the Mercury spacecraft (without escape tower), oriented for the reentry phase, was tested at transonic Mach numbers in a 1-foot transonic test tunnel at the Arnold Engineering Development Center, Tullahoma, Tennessee.