The Sixties · Space
May 15, 1963 - Mercury 9
illustration
The longest Mercury flight was launched on May 15, 1963. During the mission, piloted by Gordon Cooper, a sphere of strobe lights was launched from the capsule. Cooper remained in space for 34 hours and 19 minutes, completing 22 orbits. Due to a failure during reentry, Cooper was forced to manually pilot the capsule, but landed within sight of the recovery vehicle.
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