240
UNITED STATES NAVAL AVIATION
1910-1995
1961-Continued
and established as the Pacific Missile Range Facility,
Hawaiian Area, to serve as the mid-Pacific headquar-
ters for missile and satellite tracking stations located in
the Hawaiian and Central Pacific areas.
29 April
Kitty Hawk,
the first of a new class of
attack carriers equipped with Terrier anti-air missiles,
was commissioned at Philadelphia, Pa., Naval
Shipyard, Captain William F. Bringle commanding.
4 May
A world record balloon altitude of 113,739.9
feet was reached in a two-place open gondola
Stratolab flight by Commander Malcolm D. Ross and
Lieutenant Commander Victor A. Prather (MC).
Launched from
Antietam
off the mouth of the
Mississippi, the balloon, which was the largest ever
employed on manned flight, reached its maximum alti-
tude 2 hours and 36 minutes after takeoff 136 miles
south of Mobile, Ala. This achievement was marred by
the death of Lieutenant Commander Prather, who fell
from the sling of the recovery helicopter and died on
board the carrier about an hour after being pulled
from the water.
5 May
Commander Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN,
became the first American to go into space as he com-
pleted a flight reaching 116 miles high and 302 miles
down range from Cape Canaveral, Fla. His space cap-
sule,
Freedom
7, was launched by a Redstone rocket
and recovered at sea by an HUS-l helicopter of
HMR(L)-262 which transported it and Commander
Shepard to
Lake Champlain.
Kitty Hawk, first carriers of new class l069225
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