February 20th: First US astronaut in space

On this date in 1962 Astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth. Here are 10 things you may not know about his mission.

Launch of Mercury 6: Photo by NASA

1. His spacecraft was called Friendship 7, and the mission, Mercury 6.
2. John Glenn was selected as prime pilot, with M. Scott Carpenter as his backup.
3. Donald K. Slayton and Walter M. Schirra were pilot and backup, respectively, for the second mission, Mercury 7.
4. NASA wanted to launch Mercury 6 in 1961, to orbit an astronaut in the same year as the Soviets, but the mission hardware was not ready until early 1962.
5. The mission was postponed five times from the original planned launch date of January 16 due to problems with the fuel tanks, and bad weather. Once it was postponed simply because cloud cover would have prevented photographs being taken of the launch. There was a further delay of 42 minutes on the morning of the launch because of a defective bolt on the hatch.
6. At lift-off Glenn's pulse rate reached 110 beats per minute.
7. He spotted Perth, Australia, when the city's residents greeted him by switching on their house lights in unison.
8. Glenn orbited the earth three times before making a safe splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.
9. As the sun rose, he saw thousands of brilliant specks, floating around outside the capsule, resembling fireflies, and thought that he was looking into a star field. It was later determined that they were probably small ice crystals venting from on-board spacecraft systems.
10. A piece of the launch rocket landed on a farm near Aliwal-North, South Africa after about eight hours in orbit. The fragment was recovered by the police and handed over to NASA, which returned it as a token of goodwill, and it is now on display in the Science Museum in Pretoria.