Mercury-Atlas 6 (MA-6) was the first crewed American orbital spaceflight, which took place on February 20, 1962. Piloted by astronaut John Glenn and operated by NASA as part of Project Mercury, it was the fifth human spaceflight, preceded by Soviet orbital flights Vostok 1 and 2 and American sub-orbital flights Mercury-Redstone 3 and 4. The Mercury spacecraft, named Friendship 7, was carried to orbit by an Atlas LV-3B launch vehicle lifting off from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. After three orbits, the spacecraft re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, splashed down in the North Atlantic Ocean, and was safely taken aboard USS Noa. The total mission flight time was 4 hours 55 minutes and 23 seconds.
Preparation After the successful completion of the Mercury-Atlas 5 flight that carried Enos, a chimpanzee, in late November 1961, a press conference was held in early December. Reporters asked NASA's Robert Gilruth who would be the first U.S. astronaut in orbit, piloting MA-6. He then announced the team members for the next two Mercury missions. John H. Glenn was selected as prime pilot for the first mission (MA-6), with M. Scott Carpenter as his backup. Donald K. Slayton and Walter M. Schirra were pilot and backup, respectively, for the second mission, Mercury-Atlas 7. The MA-6 launch vehicle, Atlas #109-D, arrived at Cape Canaveral the evening of November 30, 1961. NASA had wanted to launch MA-6 in 1961 (hoping to orbit an astronaut in the same calendar year as the Soviets did), but by early December it was apparent that the mission hardware would not be ready for launch until early 1962. Mercury spacecraft #13 began taking form on McDonnell's St. Louis, Missouri assembly line in May 1960. It was chosen for the MA-6 mission in October 1960 and delivered to Cape Canaveral on August 27, 1961. Mercury spacecraft #13 and Atlas #109-D were stacked on the pad at Launch Complex 14 on January 2, 1962. As the effects of orbital space flight on humans were unknown except to the Soviets, who were keeping whatever knowledge they had a secret, Glenn was prepared with an onboard medical kit consisting of morphine for pain relief, mephentermine sulfate to treat any shock symptoms, benzylamine hydrochloride to counter motion sickness and racemic amphetamine sulfate, a stimulant. A survival kit was also placed on board to assist Glenn while waiting for recovery after splashdown, including desalter kits, dye marker, distress signal, signal mirrors, signal whistle, first aid kits, shark chaser, a PK-2 raft, survival rations, matches, and a radio transceiver. In addition, due to the lessons learnt from the previous two manned flights, MA-6 was the first American spaceflight to include a dedicated urine collection device. Prior to MA-6, there had been a reluctance on the part of NASA to permit the use of cameras by astronauts as it was feared these might prove an unnecessary distraction. Glenn, however, was successful in persuading NASA that he should be allowed to take one on the mission, and a Minolta Hi-Matic 35mm film camera (which he purchased himself at a local drug store) duly made the trip into orbit. This was modified to be used with pressure suit gloves, although changing the film in a weightless environment proved a difficult operation and during the flight Glenn knocked a film canister which then floated away, ending up behind the instrument panel.
Naming Glenn dubbed his capsule "Friendship 7", the seven in honor of the seven original astronauts selected for Mercury, a tradition inadvertently started by prior Mercury pilot, Alan Shepard, who incorporated the seven in "Freedom 7" as his spacecraft was factory model no. 7. The other astronauts liked the symbolism, and so each appended 7 to their spacecraft names as well. The spacecraft's name was developed democratically, with Glenn, his wife, Annie, and their children all participating in the process, consulting dictionaries and a thesaurus for possibilities.
"We played around with Liberty, Independence, a lot of them. The more I thought about it, the more I leaned toward the name Friendship. Flying around the world, over all those countries, that was the message I wanted to convey. In the end, that was the name the kids liked best, too. I was real proud of them." John Glenn
Flight
Delays The launch date was first announced as January 16, 1962, then postponed to January 20 because of problems with the Atlas rocket fuel tanks. A faulty yaw gyro was detected by the Spin Motor Rotation Detection System and replaced on January 13. The launch then slipped day by day to January 27 due to unfavorable winter weather. On that day, Glenn was on board Mercury 6 and ready to launch, when, at T−29 minutes, the flight director called off the launch because of thick clouds that would have made it impossible to photograph or film the launch vehicle after the first 20 seconds of the mission (the inability of launch crews to film the failed Mercury-Atlas 1 launch 16 months earlier had proven the importance of flying only in clear skies). The large crowd of reporters gathered at Cape Canaveral for the launch went home, disappointed. Mission Director Walter Williams felt a sense of relief at the bad weather, as there was still a general sense that the spacecraft and booster were not ready to fly yet. NASA informed the anxious public that the mission would take time to get ready since crewed launches required a high degree of preparation and safety standards. The launch was postponed until February 1, but when technicians began to fuel the Atlas on January 30, they discovered a fuel leak had soaked an internal insulation blanket between the RP-1 and LOX tanks. This caused a two-week delay while necessary repairs were made. On February 14, the launch was again postponed due to weather, which started to break on February 18, and it appeared that February 20 would be a favorable day to attempt a launch. The Flight Safety Review Board then met a few days before the launch to overview the twelve Atlas flights since Mercury-Atlas 5 last November. Four failures had occurred in this time. Atlas 5F and Ranger 3 had guidance failures that were of no concern for Mercury as it used a different model of guidance system and Atlas 6F and Samos 5 had random quality defects unlikely to be an issue on the more tightly supervised Mercury program.
Launch
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