Aurora 7 and Scott Carpenter

Video from the channel NASA Video about Mercury-Atlas 7, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 10:53. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

NASA piece about Mercury-Atlas 7, the mission in which Scott Carpenter orbited the Earth aboard the capsule Aurora 7, the United States' second crewed orbital flight after John Glenn's. It covers the launch, the in-orbit problems, the reentry, and the astronaut's recovery.

The video places the flight within the Mercury program, which sought to study the physiological and psychological effects of spaceflight. It notes that twenty capsules were built, of which six carried astronauts, and that from 508 military records the pool narrowed to 110 candidates and finally to the seven of the Mercury 7 group. Capsule number 18, built by McDonnell, was mounted on an Atlas D at pad LC-14, with a more demanding experiment plan than Glenn's.

In orbit, the pitch horizon scanner failed and Carpenter used hydrogen peroxide maneuvering fuel faster than planned, in addition to dealing with heat in the cabin. The automatic firing of the retrorockets did not work, and he had to fire them manually, with a delay of a few seconds that extended the splashdown point. He ran out of fuel at 120,000 feet and deployed the drogue parachute at 26,000 feet to dampen the oscillations. Gus Grissom, as CAPCOM, confirmed that he had overshot the planned zone; aircraft from the USS Intrepid located him about 45 minutes later. On May 27, 1962, James Webb awarded him the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.