1958    The U.S. manned space-flight project is renamed Project Mercury.

1959    Project Mercury: NASA announces the selection of the United States' first seven astronauts, whom the news media quickly dub the "Mercury Seven".

1960    Little Joe 1B, a Mercury spacecraft, lifts off from Wallops Island, Virginia with Miss Sam, a female rhesus monkey on board.

1961    Project Mercury: ercury-Redstone 2

1961    The Mercury program: ercury-Redstone 3

1961    Project Mercury: Mercury-Atlas 5 Mission – Enos, a chimpanzee, is launched into space. The spacecraft orbited the Earth twice and splashed-down off the coast of Puerto Rico.

1962    Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the ''Aurora 7'' space capsule.

1962    Project Mercury: Sigma 7 is launched from Cape Canaveral, with Astronaut Wally Schirra aboard, for a six-orbit, nine-hour flight.

1963    Project Mercury: The launch of the final Mercury mission, Mercury-Atlas 9 with astronaut L. Gordon Cooper on board. He becomes the first American to spend more than a day in space.