NASA-UAP-D011, Mercury Atlas 9 Audio Excerpt, May 15, 1963

UNCLASSIFIED // RECORD RELEASE 2 · 2026-05-22

archive / release 2 / NASA / audio / nasa-uap-d011-mercury-atlas-9-audio-excerpt-may-15-1963

AUDIO NASA INCIDENT 5/15/63 · Low Earth Orbit

NASA-UAP-D011, 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.

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Audio · DVIDS · 1007876

NASA-UAP-D011, Mercury Atlas 9 Audio Excerpt, May 15, 1963

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Metadata

Slug

nasa-uap-d011-mercury-atlas-9-audio-excerpt-may-15-1963

Release

release_2 (2026-05-22)

Agency

NASA

Type

audio

Incident date

5/15/63

Incident location

Low Earth Orbit

DVIDS id

1007876

Content-Type

audio/mp4

Size

5.74 MB

sha256

3810527a4a2217bf5ddbee73470f29b2d89c9a1cfdd455d8bedeb80589ab3767

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