Development

The development began with researching and investigating the actual Redstone. Once that was complete I created the first prototype.

For a first attempt it was surprisingly well done, but it was missing one crucial element, the launch escape tower. On the real craft the launch escape tower was mounted on top of the Mercury capsule and it contained small but powerful boosters. This means that if there was an emergency during the ascent or on the pad, the capsule could rapidly jettison and gain distance from the rest of the vehicle. Once the launch escape tower was implemented it was ready for the first flight.

After the implementation of the launch escape tower, the vehicle began taking people to space, this vehicle did many more missions than the real life counterpart. After a few moue missions I found room for improvement. I added an aerodynamic shroud between the capsule and the booster, creating less drag, making for a more efficient ascent.

That completes the development of the Mercury Redstone launch vehicle. Below is a comparison of the final product to the actual vehicle