Launch of the Mercury-Atlas 6 mission

S62-00954 (20 February 1962) --- This is a view of the Mercury-Atlas 6 spacecraft as it leaves the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Onboard the spacecraft is astronaut John H. Glenn Jr., pilot of the MA-6 mission, on its way to a three-Earth-orbital mission, making Glenn the first American to fly a manned Earth-orbiting mission.