Astronaut Scott Carpenter walks to the launch site to begin the Mercury-Atlas 7 (MA-7) mission on May 24, 1962. Carpenter’s Aurora 7 capsule lifted off aboard an Atlas rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 7:45 a.m. EST, May 24. Carpenter was the fourth American in space and second American to orbit Earth. During the four-hour, 54-minute flight, he tested the spacecraft and conducted scientific experiments and observations of the airglow layer of the atmosphere, and photographed terrestrial features.
“The sunrises and sunsets were the most beautiful and spectacular events of the flight,” he said. “Unlike those on Earth, the sunrises and sunsets in orbit were the same. The sharply defined bands of color at the horizon were brilliant.”
After three orbits, Aurora 7 splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean about 250 miles past its targeted landing point. Carpenter was hoisted aboard a Navy helicopter which flew him to the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, where he spoke with President John F. Kennedy via radio-telephone.
Photo Credit: NASA