Sunday marks NASA’s 60th anniversary El astronauta John Glenn He became the first American to orbit the Earth.
On February 20, 1962, a member of Mercury Ships blasted off on the agency’s three-orbit Mercury-Atlas 6 mission aboard the spacecraft called Friendship 7.
New photos released by Fox News show the work, and Glenn, in great detail.
images i created “Apollo Remastered” author Andy Saundersusing source material provided by Stephen Slater, who heads the research and production division of the “Apollo 11” archive.
Saunders, who has a Previously Shared Photos Since the Apollo 15 moon landing, he regularly posts new photos on Twitter And the Instagram.
To produce each new photo, Saunders told Fox News that he stacked hundreds of film frames on top of each other in various areas of the film, “averaging” the image noise, and “stitching” the frames, with each photo contains more than 1000 sample images. The output was then constructed using digital processing techniques.
Glenn can be seen waiting for launch for more than two hours before the spaceflight, as well as in orbit, observing the drive and the curvature of the Earth.
According to NASAthe initial launch attempt on January 27 was postponed due to thick clouds that would have prevented tracking of the rocket’s ascent.
Mechanical and weather problems added further delays.
Glenn boarded the capsule at Launch Complex 14 of what is now the Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
After additional delays, following nearly four hours in the capsule, the countdown reached zero at 9:47 a.m. EDT and all three of the Atlas rocket’s main engines ignited.
Four seconds later, the rocket climbed above the launch pad, and two minutes and nine seconds later, the two booster engines shut down and were jettisoned.
After continuing to operate on power from its mid-mounted propulsion engine, within five minutes and one second of flight, the running engine died and Friendship 7 stalled following two seconds.
Glenn was in orbit and turned Friendship 7, blowing its heat shield in the direction of flight.
Glenn took photographs and continued to report on his and the spacecraft’s condition, successfully checking the height of the capsule and downing a tube of apple juice and xylitol pills before receiving approval for his second orbit.
As Glenn passed over Cape Canaveral during the start of its second orbit, observers noticed a sign that the spacecraft’s landing bag had extended, meaning the heat shield required for re-entry was no longer in place. .
Though the engineers believed the signal to be a bug, they devised a plan to keep the retro-rocket pack following the upgrade, with the goal being that the straps would keep the heat shield in place.
Glenn, who was not explicitly briefed on the matter, was advised to ensure the landing bag deployment switch was in the “off” position.
It was given the green light to proceed to its third orbit, and Glenn was instructed by controllers to set the landing bag switch to auto and hold the aft bag in place following the update if the light came on.
Glenn reported hearing no knocks during positioning maneuvers that would indicate a deployed landing bag.
Near California, the spacecraft launched all three reactors to slow them down, and engineers closely watched Friendship 7’s return to Earth’s atmosphere.
As planned, a temporary radio blackout occurred for four minutes and 20 seconds as the spacecraft accelerated through the upper atmosphere, with Glenn describing the return as a “real fireball outside” as parts of the suitcase burned. aft.
He manually controlled the spacecraft’s altitude, eventually exhausting its fuel supply.
At 28,000 feet, the rolling canopy appeared early on, and at 10,800 feet the 63-foot red and white main canopy followed.
Friendship 7 touched down near Grand Turk Island at 2:43 pm EST.
Glenn’s flight lasted four hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds.
The closest ship, the destroyer USS Noah, completed recovery from the waters and the recovery process took 21 minutes.
Glenn blew out the side hatch and doctors escorted him to the ship’s sickbay for a medical exam. He was then flown to Grand Turk Island, where he arrived following some five hours of splashing water.
Later, President John F. Kennedy Medal for Distinguished Service from NASA.
After a tour on February 23, 1963, NASA officially handed over Friendship 7 to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
When he was 77 years old in 1998, Glenn had the opportunity to fly once more with six astronauts. Aboard the Discovery Shuttle flight STS-95.
glenn, Who was born in Ohio On July 18, 1921, he later became a United States Senator and served in that position for 25 years. He also worked with undergraduate students at The Ohio State University.
Glenn was a Navy pilot during World War II, fought in the Korean War, and became an aircraft test pilot, setting a speed record in 1957 during a flight from Los Angeles to New York that lasted less than 3, 5 hours.
Died in Columbus, OhioDecember 8, 2016, at the age of 95.
