John Glenn returned to orbit on October 29, 1998, at the age of 77. His second spaceflight was a nine-day research mission aboard Discovery, with six colleagues and a laboratory full of experiments.
These photographs begin with Friendship 7 in 1962, then follow the later mission through preparation and flight. Each image carries its own date; rehearsal scenes and the November landing are not presented as photographs of October 29.
Topic: Space History
01 / 06
The first orbital flight
John Glenn sits inside Friendship 7 during his first orbital mission. He flew alone, completing three circuits of Earth before returning to the Atlantic. The image supplies the earlier half of the story: the astronaut who returned on Discovery in 1998 had first reached orbit in a much smaller spacecraft.
NASA / U.S. Information Agency; U.S. National Archives, 306-PSD-67-1647. Public domain.
02 / 06
A payload specialist again
Glenn poses for his STS-95 portrait in an orange launch and entry suit. By then he was a U.S. senator as well as a former Mercury astronaut. NASA’s caption dates this portrait to May 1998, while the page metadata gives April; the year is secure, and the narrower date is left open here.
NASA; NASA Johnson Space Center, S98-06862. Public domain.
03 / 06
Practicing the departure
The seven STS-95 astronauts leave the Operations and Checkout Building during their countdown rehearsal. This was preparation, twenty days before liftoff. Emergency procedures and the sequence of a launch were rehearsed together; Glenn’s earlier Mercury experience did not remove the need to learn the shuttle crew’s routines.
NASA; NASA Kennedy Space Center, KSC-98pc1299. Public domain.
04 / 06
Discovery leaves Pad 39B
Discovery rises on STS-95, carrying Glenn back to orbit more than 36 years after Friendship 7. The mission also carried equipment for research in biology, materials and solar science. The public story centered on a 77-year-old astronaut; the flight plan had work for seven people.
NASA; NASA Kennedy Space Center, KSC-98PC-1449. Public domain.
05 / 06
Work inside Spacehab
Glenn handles cartridges for the Advanced Organic Separation experiment during the flight. The equipment and crowded working space give the mission a different scale from the solitary cockpit of Friendship 7. His second visit to orbit involved ordinary laboratory tasks as well as the medical measurements that attracted public attention.
NASA; NASA Kennedy, STS095-325-013 / KSC-JohnGlenn-0016. Public domain.
06 / 06
Back on a Florida runway
Discovery lowers its nose after touching down at the Shuttle Landing Facility. The landing finished the flight, but measurements of the crew’s response to gravity continued. That postflight work belonged to the research too: observations from orbit were only part of the record investigators wanted to examine.
