NASA Astronaut John Glenn Orbits Earth 60 Years Ago Today: Here's How He Survived This Bumpy Journey

NASA astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth 60 years ago on Sunday. The "Mercury Seven" member embarked on the agency's three-orbit Mercury-Atlas 6 mission on February 20, 1962, onboard the spacecraft he called Friendship 7.

A photographic specialist has recreated film from NASA astronaut John Glenn's momentous orbit of the Earth to commemorate the 60th anniversary of his journey.

John Glenn's Historic First Orbit of the Earth: Photos Marks 60 Years Since Orbiting The Planet

Using an image-stacking approach, British digital media expert Andy Saunders, has regularly created convincing digital restorations of vintage material.

The 60th anniversary of the first American orbital mission, Mercury-Atlas 6, called Friendship 7, flown by US Marine Corps Col. John Herschel Glenn, coincides with Saunders' newest contribution to the history of human spaceflight.

Space exploration fascinates Saunders, whose digitally restored photographs of Project Apollo will be released in September. As a result, he updates his Twitter and Instagram accounts daily.

Saunders told Fox News that to create each new image, he piled hundreds of frames from the film on top of one other in various regions of the film, "averaging out" the visual noise.

With each image having over 1,000 image samples, he "stitched" the frames together. After that, digital processing techniques were used to create the result.

Glenn could be seen in orbit, monitoring the launcher and the curvature of Earth, as well as preparing for launch for more than two hours before the space journey.

How Glenn Orbited The Earth

Before becoming an astronaut, Glenn had a remarkable military career. During World War II and the Korean War, he was a Marine fighter pilot. In 1957, he flew the first supersonic transcontinental trip across the United States as a test pilot.

He was chosen as one of America's first astronauts, the "Mercury 7," in 1959. According to ABC27, The number 7 was used to name all manned Mercury spacecraft; Glenn called his Friendship 7 spacecraft. It was hand-painted on the capsule at his request, similar to how his fighter jets were decorated.

The countdown lasted two hours and seventeen minutes, but Glenn's spacecraft ultimately departed the launchpad at 9:47 am EST. On a journey spanning four hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds, he would make three orbits around the Earth.

Glenn, unknown to the rest of the world, was experiencing problems with Friendship 7. The automated stabilization and control system began to fail around the conclusion of his first orbit. For most of the journey, Glenn would be in charge of the ship manually.

Ground control tried to decipher a malfunction notice without telling Glenn, too. A sensor revealed that the heat shield and landing bag were no longer secured towards the start of the second orbit.

Sixty years in the future, this dilemma requires additional explanation. The heat shield of the Mercury spacecraft was designed to absorb the majority of the heat generated during re-entry. The retropack, a canister carrying three miniature rocket engines that, when launched, would slow the spaceship enough to begin re-entry, was strapped to the heatshield. It was fastened in place, ready to be expelled once the weapon was fired.

The landing bag was hidden below the heat shield. The heat shield was to detach from the capsule during re-entry as the capsule floated down to the ocean on parachutes, bringing out the landing bag, which would assist in softening the impact of landing.

The capsule may burn up on re-entry if the indicator provided a valid reading and the heat shield was unfastened. It also means that the heat shield was only held in place by the retropack's straps. After they fired, ground control urged Glenn to keep the retropack on without explaining why. He was perplexed by the command, but he carried it out.

It was a bumpy voyage back. Glenn wondered whether his heat shield was failing as he observed shards of blazing metal fly past his glass. Fortunately, the sensor, not the heat barrier, had failed; he saw burning retropack chunks. Glenn landed safely and was hailed as an American hero.

Glenn died at the age of 95 on December 8, 2016, Space.com said. His long, busy, and inspirational life left an indelible mark on history books and the American psyche. For instance, NASA's Glenn Research Center in Ohio is named for the pioneering astronaut. His Freedom 7 capsule is exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Virginia's Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

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