Video: 'Major Cooper's 22 Orbits Round The Earth (1963)'

(Wednesday, May 15, 1963, 9:04:13 a.m. EDT, part of NASA’s Project Mercury) — NASA launched Mercury 9 from Cape Canaveral today with astronaut L. Gordon Cooper in the capsule designated Faith 7 on the final crewed space mission of the U.S. Mercury program.

Video: 'Launch of Gordon Cooper Aboard Faith 7!'

Cooper entered the spacecraft at 6:33 a.m. EDT for a 9:00 a.m. launch and took a brief nap while awaiting liftoff.

At T minus 11 minutes and 30 seconds, the countdown was halted for a problem with the guidance equipment, and another hold was called at T-0:19 to determine whether automatic sequencing was working.

Video: 'Mercury-Atlas 9 Launch at 32 fps - Tracking cameras, HD source - Gordon Cooper, Faith 7'

Liftoff happened four minutes after the original time, and visual tracking was possible for two minutes.

Five minutes after liftoff at 9:09 a.m., Faith 7 was inserted into an orbit that ranged from 100.2 miles to 165.9 miles above the Earth and reached a maximum orbital speed of 17,546.6 miles per hour.

Video: 'FLIGHT OF FAITH 7 - Mercury-Atlas 9 (1963/05/15) - NASA documentary'

Temperatures inside the capsule ranged from 92 °F to 109 °F, uncomfortable but tolerable, before cooling down.

During his third orbit, Cooper became the first human to launch an object (the beacon) from an orbiting spacecraft. Cooper was able to see the flashing beacon on the night side of the fourth orbit.

Video: '"I'll Do It Myself": The Greatest Feat of Piloting in Space'

During the re-entry operation on May 16, 1963, Cooper fired the retrorockets manually and attained the proper re-entry attitude by using his observation window scribe marks to give proper reference with the horizon and to determine if he was rolling.

From the command ship in the Pacific Ocean off the Japanese coast, John Glenn advised Cooper when to jettison the retropack. The main chute deployed at 11,000 feet.

Faith 7 splashed down 7,000 yards from the prime recovery ship, USS Kearsarge at 7:23 p.m. EDT in the Pacific Ocean.

Cooper had completed 22 Earth orbits and traveled 546,167 miles during 34 hours, 19 minutes, and 49 seconds in space flight.