Launch of Friendship 7

Friendship 7 launches from Cape Canaveral atop a Mercury-Atlas rocket, carrying John Glenn on the flight that made him the first American to orbit Earth. Glenn circled the planet three times in just under five hours, and a sensor warning during the flight raised fears that the capsule's heat shield had come loose, prompting mission control to leave the retrorocket pack attached during reentry as a precaution. Glenn returned home a national hero and later flew again on the Space Shuttle in 1998.