On Wednesday, May 4, at 2 p.m. EDT, the U.S. Postal Service will unveil two new stamps at the Rocket Garden of the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, located on State Road 405.

One stamp commemorates NASA’s Project Mercury and Alan Shepard’s historic launch on May 5, 1961 aboard the spacecraft Freedom 7. The second stamp honors NASA’s MESSENGER, which reached Mercury in March to become the first spacecraft to orbit the planet. The two missions frame a remarkable 50-year period in which America advanced space exploration through more than 1,500 manned and unmanned flights.

Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter and members of the Shepard family will join NASA Administrator Charles Bolden at the stamps’ unveiling and at a 50th anniversary ceremony on Thursday, May 5, at 9 a.m., at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.