WHAT:          Photo opportunity with Mercury astronauts

WHEN:          Thursday, June 23. Press call time: 5:45 p.m.  Photo: 6 p.m.

WHERE:       National Air and Space Museum, Seventh Street and Independence Avenue S.W.

WHO:             Scott Carpenter and John Glenn

On Feb. 20, 1962, John Glenn piloted the Friendship 7 spacecraft on the United States’ first orbital Mercury mission. His flight, launched by a Mercury-Atlas rocket, lasted four hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds, all but seven minutes in weightlessness. Glenn gained instant national fame as the first American to orbit the Earth. He later flew in space a second time aboard Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-95) in 1998.

Scott Carpenter flew into space May 24, 1962, aboard Aurora 7, which launched atop a Mercury-Atlas rocket for a three-orbit science mission lasting nearly five hours. He was the second American to orbit the Earth and the fourth American in space. Carpenter has also performed pioneering research in deep sea diving and habitability on the ocean floor.

Glenn and Carpenter will be at the museum to speak at the annual John H. Glenn Lecture in Space History. 

Interested media must RSVP to larai@si.edu or mullenb@si.edu.