A Mercury-Redstone launch vehicle awaits test-firing in the Redstone Test Stand during the late 1950s. Between 1953 and 1960, the rocket team at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama performed hundreds of test firings on the Redstone rocket, over 200 on the Mercury-Redstone vehicle configuration alone. It was this configuration which launched America's first two marned space missions, Freedom 7 and Liberty Bell 7,in 1961.