Mercury-Atlas 9 lifts off from Pad 14 at Cape Canaveral with astronaut L. Gordon Cooper aboard Faith 7 for the nation's longest manned orbital flight. Lift-off occurred at 8:04 a.m. EST, on May 15, 1963. And 34 hours, 20 minutes, 30 seconds, and 22 orbits later, Gordon Cooper was resting in his Faith 7 space capsule in the blue Pacific Ocean.
NASA
Taken on 15 May 1963
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