NASA astronaut John Glenn made history in 1962 when he became the first American to orbit the Earth.

One of NASA’s seven original astronauts, Glenn rocketed into space aboard his Mercury spacecraft Friendship 7 and its Atlas booster on Feb. 20, 1962 at 9:47 a.m. EST (1447 GMT). Glenn flew more than 75,185 miles (121,000 kilometers) in four hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds of orbital spaceflight.

 

Glenn wasn’t the first American in space (Alan Shepard launched in 1961), nor was he the first in orbit (the former Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin [image] grabbed that title on April 12, 1961 when he became the first human to reach space). But Glenn’s launch – which was watched by an estimated 60 million people on live television – pushed NASA and the U.S. one step closer to achieving its goal of sending astronauts to the Moon by proving the nation could reach orbital space.

 

Glenn encountered two major glitches during the brief spaceflight. A clogged yaw attitude control jet forced the astronaut to abandon the Friendship 7’s automatic control system in favor of their manual counterparts.

 

Also, a signal indicating that a heat shield clamp on the underside of Friendship 7 prematurely released prompted Glenn and flight controllers to retain the spacecraft’s retrorocket pack (normally jettisoned before reentry) to hold the shield in place in case it had loosened. The glitch was later attributed to a faulty switch.

 

Glenn’s flight was followed by three more Mercury flights before NASA proceeded to the Gemini and Apollo programs, which themselves were followed by Skylab, space shuttles and the International Space Station (ISS).

 

Since October 2000, NASA has maintained a continuous U.S. astronaut presence in Earth orbit aboard the ISS. The station’s first commander William Shepherd kicked off NASA’s unbroken chain if orbital astronauts.

 

Two NASA astronauts – Michael Lopez-Alegria and Sunita Williams – currently live aboard the ISS today. Lopez-Alegria serves as the space station’s Expedition 14 commander, with Williams serving as a flight engineer alongside Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin.

 

NASA is also poised to launch another round of shuttle astronauts – six to be precise – next month aboard the Atlantis orbiter to deliver new solar arrays to the ISS during the STS-117 orbital construction mission.

 

• IMAGES: NASA’s Project Mercury in Pictures
• John Glenn Recalls First Manned Orbit
• All About Human Spaceflight

 

-- Tariq Malik

 

Credit: NASA.