God Speed John Glenn

Part 2 of 2 By Wes Oleszewski

John Glenn's mission to become the first American to orbit the Earth suffered an agonizing amount of delays. Initially planned to launch in the second week of January 1962, Glenn’s MA-6 launch vehicle had suffered a fuel tank issue. Thus, a new launch date of January 23 had to be set. On that Tuesday morning everything was ready, an estimated 600 newsman had gathered at Cape Canaveral and around the world recovery and tracking stations were ready to go. The weather however consisted of heavy cloud cover and some developing thunderstorms. For the second time the launch of Friendship 7 was scrubbed. The ill weather persisted for the remainder of the week. Meteorologists at the Cape forecast that Saturday, 27 January may provide good launch conditions. Once again John Glenn was suited up loaded aboard his Friendship 7 capsule and prepared for his launch. For little more than five hours he waited as the count went down to the T-29 minute mark where it was once again scrubbed due to weather. Mercury operations director Walt Williams expressed relief that the launch been scrubbed because of the weather- saying that "… Nothing was wrong, but nothing was right either."

Glenn Boards Friendship 7 Spacecraft

In the process of de-fueling and inspecting the MA-6 booster following the scrub, technicians discovered a leak in the kerosene propellant tank. Repair of the leak would require a removal and reinstallation of the insulation around the liquid oxygen tank and the estimated delay would push the launch back to at least February 13. That date was subsequently pushed back to February 16 when again the launch would be scrubbed because of bad weather. Finally the weather conditions appeared favorable for launch on February 20, 1962. It was a date that John Glenn and Friendship 7 could finally keep.

Launches of this era were far different than the launches that we came to know in the Space Shuttle era. No one outside of the technicians and managers working in the block house heard any live communication during the countdown. Every shred of information that came from the flight was filtered to and through NASA's project Mercury public information officer, John “Shorty” Powers. He was the single source point for flight information to get to, not only the news media, but the entire world. Although long-range cameras showed the launch it was NASA's policy that the only thing about the launch that would be heard would come through Shorty Powers. He was the censor who decided what information was appropriate and what was not. So, although thousands of spectators gathered around the perimeter of Cape Canaveral they didn't hear the actual countdown- instead they heard Shorty Powers count backward to the launch. In fact live conversation between the spacecraft and the ground was not heard directly by the public until Apollo 10. Likewise live communication in-flight was not heard by the public until Gemini 4 in 1965 and live television of spacecraft recovery wasn't provided until the Gemini 7/6 missions later that same year. So it was that on the morning of the Friendship 7 launch- everyone simply hung on every word spoken by Shorty Powers.

John Glenn With Shorty Powers

Awakened at 2:20 AM John Glenn proceeded through the now traditional steps of breakfast, medical exam, suit up and walk out. At 5:16 AM he arrived at launch Complex 14 on board the “transfer van” which was actually was a semi. tractor-trailor truck. As the count entered a scheduled 90 min. hold, technicians at the pad found a fault and the booster's guidance system. For a moment it seemed as if another scrubbed launch may be in the cards. But the problem was solved by the replacement of a module and the delay in the launch was cut down to just 45 minutes. Then at 10 minutes after the hour of seven o'clock, technicians noticed a broken bolt among the 70 bolts that held the hatch closed. The bolt was ordered replaced and a launch was slipped by an additional 40 minutes. Finally at 8:05 AM the count was resumed. Two more delays came up in the count, one at 8:58 AM involving a fuel pump outlet valve and the second at 9:25 AM involving a computer at the Bermuda tracking station. Each of these issues were rapidly overcome in the count continued.

As the countdown drew into its final seconds, Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter could be heard on the voice loop saying "God speed John Glenn." For Carpenter it was a brief, localized prayer for the well-being of his friend and fellow astronaut. If such were to occur today, however, sadly the person who spoke the words on a "government" radio would likely end up being sued by an atheist. Finally just 39 seconds after 9:47 AM count reached zero.

Friendship 7 Liftoff

The ignition sequence for the Atlas-D booster involved the light off of the two Vernier steering thrusters on the sides of the vehicle followed less than one second later by the ignition of the three main engines. Although official documents state that liftoff occurred "… about T+4 seconds after ignition," examination of historic video appears to show liftoff initiated around 6.7 seconds after ignition. The precise moment of liftoff was probably not a large concern aboard Friendship 7 that morning. What John Glenn was focused upon was following to-the-letter the procedures that he and his fellow astronauts had written for the launch phase of the Atlas booster.

He was also well aware of the concerns that many engineers had about the Atlas booster itself. One such concern was his passing through the area of maximum aerodynamic pressure on the vehicle, or “Max-q.” It was the area of boosted flight where the previous Mercury Atlas, MA-1, had failed. Glenn’s dilemma being that Max-q and the sound barrier are normally relatively close to one another along the flight profile. The transonic region just happens to be an area where the maximum cabin noise and vibration take place. Dutifully, John Glenn reported that vibration by saying "… Have some vibration area coming up now." Then 28 seconds later considering what had he just said and decided to reassure those on the ground, some of whom had their finger on the command destruct button. "We’re smoothing out some now, getting out of the vibration area." At 2 minutes and 9, seconds into powered flight the two outboard booster engines shut down and were jettisoned. This point in the Atlas’ launch was known as BECO, or Booster Engine Cutoff. The remaining engine, known as the sustainer engine, continued to burn for the remainder of powered flight. Although John Glenn had mistaken some of the plume backflow from the BECO as being his escape tower jettisoning, some 25 seconds after the booster engines separated he witnessed the actual automatic jettison of his escape tower. Overall powered flight lasted for 5 minutes and 1 second.

Every ear in the free world and countless ears behind the Iron Curtain were glued to their radios as Friendship 7 orbited the earth. They listened intently as Shorty Powers described flight and as radio reporters reinterpreted his words. The universal feeling being that "we" finally have a man up there. And the distinction became obvious that the difference between the United States flying an astronaut and the Soviet Union flying a cosmonaut was that NASA conducted its flights under the glaring scrutiny of the news media and the full view of the public, while the Soviets conducted their flights under the shroud of totalitarian secrecy.

Retro Rocket Pack With Straps

Although he had been cleared for "… at least seven orbits," John Glenn's mission was about to come to an early conclusion. By the beginning of his second orbit he was dealing with a persistent problem with a yaw thruster, but a potentially more dangerous problem was being indicated by the telemetry system. The "segment 51" sensor was indicating that the capsules landing bag had deployed. Folded accordion-style between the heat shield in the capsule’s aft bulkhead, the landing bag was designed to pop out after reentry and act as both a cushion and the sea anchor at splashdown. If the indication was valid John Glenn's capsule would burn up on reentry. A firestorm of phone calls and loop communications discussing this issue took place following its initial reception by the Bermuda "TM" controller. Glenn had not hint of the problem until the 2 hour and 47 second point in the mission when the Canton Island capcom simply said "We also have no indication that your landing bag might be deployed. Over." To which John Glenn replied "Roger. Did someone report landing bag could be down? Over." The capcom then blew it off by replying with “Negative we had a request to monitor this and to ask if you've heard any flapping, when you had high capsule rates…" John Glenn then went on with his very busy work schedule paying little mind to the landing bag reference. Meanwhile at Mercury control the serious debate was being waged between those controllers who felt that the segment 51 signal was erroneous and should be ignored and those in NASA management who thought the best plan of action would be not to jettison the retro rocket package after retro-fire. The retro rocket package was held on to the heat shield and the spacecraft by three straps. Management felt that those straps may hold on just long enough to keep the heat shield in place.

There are a lot of accounts written by different individuals who were there at that moment in history when the flight of Friendship 7 appeared to be in jeopardy. There are a lot of documentaries that have been created about that moment in history as well. Yet no one specifically says exactly who it was that came up with the idea to leave the retro package attached. In the largely fictitious movie posing as a documentary "The Right Stuff" a German rocket scientist is shown holding a Mercury capsule and discussing the options. Just for the sake of reality and considering how steeped most of us are in pop culture, it is important to note that aside from a few launch pad operations there were largely no German rocket scientists involved with the Mercury capsule. In fact, the one individual leading the charge for the retro packet solution was the developer of the Mercury capsule Max Faget (pronounced Fa-jay). An original member of the Space Task Group, he carried tremendous weight in the Mercury Program. According to Gene Kranz’s  terrific book “Failure Is not An Option” reentry with the retro package remaining attached to Glenn’s capsule was Max’s idea.

John Glenn In Orbit

On the third orbit Friendship 7 came into ground contact with the Hawaii station at the 4 hour in 21 minute mark of the mission. Just 1 minute and 45 seconds later the capcom informed John Glenn of the full nature of their concern. "Friendship seven, we have been reading in indication on the ground of segment 51, which is landing bag deployed. We suspect this is an erroneous signal. However, Cape would like you to check this by putting the landing bag switch in auto position, and see if you get a light. Do you concur with this? Over." The capcom transmitted. Glenn replied, "Okay. If that's what they recommend, will go ahead and try it. Are you ready for now?" and from that point on John Glenn was actually brought into the loop concerning the problem the ground controllers had been studying for more than an hour and a half. Dutifully Glenn move switch into the auto position. He then reported "negative, in automatic position did not get a light and I'm back in the off position now. Over."

No one really knew for certain whether Friendship 7 would survive reentry. And although contemporary documentaries and movies may depict an agonizing length of time that John Glenn had to contemplate the problem, in fact, just 20 minutes and 5 seconds separated his notification by ground controllers and reentry blackout. At 04:42:50 into the flight Friendship 7 began entry interface. Against the judgment of flight controllers, NASA management had elected to use and untested procedure based only on the segment 51 indication and ordered the retro package to be left on Friendship 7’s heat shield. It was their hope that the landing bag would remain attached through the majority of the 4 minute reentry. In fact, from Glenn’s real-time reports, the retro pack remained attached for just the first 24 seconds of the reentry.

Following the reentry Friendship 7 simply dropped through the atmosphere for little more than 70,000 feet. It was kept stable during that time by the constant firing of the reaction control system jets. Finally at an altitude of 30,000 feet the drogue chute automatically deployed. This small parachute was designed to stabilize the capsule as it descended into the thicker atmosphere. The final step in the parachute sequence came passing through 11,000 feet with the release of the main parachute. Glenn reported "Chute is out, in reefed condition at 10,800 feet," and then exclaimed gleefully, "and beautiful chute!" Exactly 12 seconds after deployment of the main parachute the landing bag that had causes so much worry prior to reentry deployed normally. For the next 5 minutes and 10 seconds Friendship 7 floated gracefully the surface of the Atlantic Ocean where it splashed down and was later safely recovered by the Navy destroyer USS Noa.

Euphoria across the free world immediately followed John Glenn's Friendship 7 flight. Americans had the real feeling that they were finally gaining momentum in the space race with Soviet Union. Although the Soviets were actually well ahead in flight duration and in lifting capability NASA sought to trump that advantage with the fact that the United States launched their rockets in the full site of the public while Russian flights were conducted in secret. Of course, John Glenn's flight was censored to a degree. The landing bag issue, which could have ended Glenn's life, was not disclosed until after the flight. By then, of course, euphoria of a successful mission completely overshadowed that little problem. In fact the fix for the landing bag was quite simple. The heat shield deployment limit switches which, indicated that the heat shield was released, were rewired in series rather than parallel and rigged farther away from the actuation points. The landing bag anomaly never reappeared on future Mercury flights.

Today, a half-century after the flight of Friendship 7 we remember and still celebrate John Glenn's successful mission. The Friendship 7 flight moved people, it moved a nation and it moved the free world. It silenced congressional critics of NASA and it gave President John F. Kennedy a shining success in his effort to reach the moon. Nearly every kid in the United States knew who John Glenn was, what he had done and what project Mercury was. It had been demonstrated that the United States could indeed put a man into orbit and bring them back alive. We had spacecraft, we had the booster, we had the infrastructure, we had the manpower, we had the NASA leadership and we had the national will to do the job. That is in stark contrast to what we have in the United States today as the United States appears to have none of that at this moment. Perhaps in looking back once again at John Glenn's Friendship 7 flight we may consider recapturing what we had on February 20, 1962. It was an era when no one dared to say that the United States could “Lead from behind.” (Images provided by NASA)

FMI: www.nasa.gov