A Mercury project spacecraft that flew the second orbital mission in May 1962, with astronaut Scott Carpenter. Aurora 7 lost fuel when two of its systems were operated simultaneously. Attitude control became difficult to maintain, and Carpenter had to fire his thrusters and retrorockets manually, landing 402 km from the proposed landing site in the Pacific Ocean. Some on-board experiments also failed during the flight.

Engineers of the McDonnell Aircraft Company check the Aurora 7 spacecraft prior to astronaut Scott Carpenter’s triple-orbit mission round Earth. The Mercury project flight suffered technical difficulties and very nearly ended in disaster.

Credit: NASA