Video: 'Friendship 7 (Full Mission 01)'

(Tuesday, February 20, 1962, 9:47:39 a.m.-2:43:02 p.m. EST) — The United States placed an astronaut into orbit for the first time today as John Glenn, 40, was sent aloft by an Atlas LV-3B launch vehicle lifting off from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard the Mercury spacecraft Friendship 7.

Video: 'Friendship 7 (Full Mission 2)'

Glenn was launched at 9:47 a.m. EST after two hours and 17 minutes of holds and three hours and 44 minutes after Glenn entered Friendship 7. Engineer T. J. O’Malley pressed the button in the blockhouse launching the spacecraft and said “the good Lord ride all the way.”

Video: 'Friendship 7 (Full Mission 3)'

Capsule communicator Scott Carpenter then uttered the famous phrase “Godspeed, John Glenn.” Due to a glitch in Glenn’s radio, he did not hear the Carpenter phrase during launch.

Video: 'CBS NEWS - FRIENDSHIP 7 LAUNCH (JOHN GLENN) (2-20-1962)'

Video: 'Friendship 7 Part 3 NBC News Live Coverage of The Launch'

Glenn attained orbit 12 minutes later. After three orbits, the spacecraft re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere at 2:20 p.m., splashed down in the North Atlantic Ocean at 2:43 p.m., and was safely taken aboard USS Noa at 3:04 p.m. Total mission flight time was four hours 55 minutes and 23 seconds.

Video: 'February 20, 1962 - President John F. Kennedy views the lift off of the 1st US Manned Orbital Flight'

Video: 'February 20, 1962 - President John F. Kennedy Speaks to the Press after John Glenn's Orbital flight'

It was the fifth human spaceflight, preceded by Soviet orbital flights Vostok 1 and 2 and American sub-orbital flights Mercury-Redstone 3 and 4.

Video: '"Godspeed, John Glenn":Friendship7: 4of6'