Mercury-Scout, a Halloween oopsie

[WallE]

Prior to carrying out an orbital launch of Mercury, NASA planned for a test satellite to verify the operability of the Mercury Tracking Network, a chain of receiving stations and radio ships placed at various locations around the globe to receive communications from the spacecraft, necessary due to the lack of an operating system of comsats at this early phase of space exploration.

The mission was to involve a small comsat launched on a solid-fueled Scout rocket. It was a crash project only greenlighted in May 1961 and NASA issued the specifications for the LV and satellite a few weeks later. A 147 pound satellite with battery power was constructed by Ford Aeronutronic during the summer months. Due to the haste of the project, the team were working around the clock to get the Blue Scout II and MS-1 satellite ready for launch but there were delays and more delays due to technical problems. Mercury-Atlas 4 launched September 13 while MS-1 was still sitting on the pad. Issues with the Scout fourth stage delayed the launch still more weeks.

After all that effort, the result was an anticlimax. MS-1 was sitting on LC-18B at Cape Canaveral awaiting launch on Halloween. When the button was pressed in the blockhouse to start the Scout's Algol 1B solid motor, nothing happened. Technicians checked out and repaired the ignition circuits and another attempt was scheduled for November 1. The Scout's motor started up this time and it lifted from LC-18B but control of the vehicle began to fail within seconds. It tumbled erratically and began breaking up at T+28 seconds. With the trajectory no longer moving away from land, the Range Safety officer sent the destruct command at T+43 seconds.

Analysis of booster debris found that the mishap was due to a simple mistake by a technician who was probably overworked and sleep-deprived--two wires in the flight control system were accidentally transposed so that pitch commands were sent to yaw and vice versa.

A backup Scout and satellite would have to be prepared, but the backup vehicle's first stage was found to have problems and the only fourth stage available was lost in the launch mishap. Since in any case Mercury-Atlas 5 was due to launch soon the MTN would get a proper checkout, in fact it already did on MA-4, and there was no need to fly a Mercury-Scout satellite. The backup flight was called off.