55th Anniversary of John Glenn's "Friendship 7" Flight features
- Facts about John Glenn He was a Marine aviator and flew combat missions during WWII and the Korean War He nicknamed his Mercury spacecraft Friendship 7 During the Friendship 7 flight in 1962, there was a failure of the automatic control system and he had to switch to manual control during the second and third orbits and during re-entry He was elected to the Senate in 1974 and served 4 terms until his retirement in 1999 In 1998, in his fourth and final term as a U.S.