Overview
- On February 20, 1962, Glenn circled Earth three times in Friendship 7 over about 4 hours 55 minutes, becoming the first American to orbit.
- During the second orbit, a warning suggested an unsecured heat shield, so controllers kept the retrorocket attached for reentry; Glenn splashed down safely and later inspection pointed to a faulty sensor.
- The flight followed suborbital U.S. missions by Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom and trailed Soviet orbital firsts by Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov during the Cold War space race.
- Glenn’s national stature led to 25 years in the U.S. Senate and a 1984 presidential bid, and he returned to space in 1998 at age 77 for research on aging.
- In later remarks, Glenn said spaceflight strengthened his belief in God and told the Associated Press that accepting scientific evidence like evolution did not lessen his faith.