Friendship 7
Friendship 7 carried John Glenn around Earth three times on 20 February 1962 — the first American orbital spaceflight. The nearly five-hour mission made Glenn a national hero.
◉ REÁLNÉ FOTO · NASA / images.nasa.govContents
living encyclopedia entryriendship 7 caught the American Mercury program up to the Soviet level: John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth, doing so three times. A more powerful Atlas rocket replaced the Redstone, opening the way to longer orbital flights.
One of the original Mercury Seven, a Marine Corps pilot. Friendship 7 made him the first American to orbit the Earth. In 1998, at age 77, aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, he became the oldest person ever to fly in space.
open person →During the flight a warning suggested the heat shield had come loose — Mission Control kept the spent retrorocket pack attached to help hold it in place during reentry. The signal turned out to be false, but those minutes of uncertainty were among the tensest of the whole Mercury program.
John Glenn boarded the Friendship 7 capsule at 11:03 UTC. Before the mission could even begin, an hour-long repair to the Atlas…
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During three orbits of the Earth at over 28,000 km/h, Glenn experienced a phenomenon he called “fireflies” — thousands of tiny…
číst kapitolu →Because the retrorocket package had been kept in place, Glenn had to operate several systems manually during reentry, including…
číst kapitolu →MISSION IN NUMBERS
- John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth — after the Soviet flights of Gagarin and German Titov.
- CAPCOM Scott Carpenter’s words “Godspeed, John Glenn” became legendary, even though Glenn himself never heard them at launch because of a radio glitch.
- During the flight Glenn observed thousands of glittering particles he called “fireflies” — ice crystals venting from the spacecraft.
- A false alarm from a faulty sensor led Mission Control to keep the retrorocket package attached during reentry as a safeguard for the heat shield.
- The capsule splashed down 64 km from the planned site, and the destroyer USS Noa reached it in just 17 minutes.
- In 1998, at age 77, Glenn became the oldest person ever to fly in space aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.
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