That employment occupied her for the remainder of 1959 and throughout 1960. On 5 May 1961, "Abbot" briefly entered the race for space. Supporting the sub-orbital flight of "Freedom 7", "Abbot" was detailed to help recover the Mercury capsule after splash-down roughly east of Cape Canaveral, Florida. The mission was designated MR-3, or Mercury-Redstone 3, and it was the United States's answer to the successful flight of Yuri Gagarin, the Soviet cosmonaut who became the first human in space. In September 1961, "Abbot" became the school ship for the Destroyer Officer's School located at Newport. Her routine of service along the east coast and in the West Indies training naval officers in their future duties on board destroyer-type warships was broken twice in 1962. In August, she was ordered to Guantánamo Bay, where she served as a base defense ship during disorders in Haiti. Then, in October, she participated in operations enforcing the quarantine of Cuba established by President John F. Kennedy after he learned that Soviet offensive missiles had been based on that island. She was released from that duty in mid-November and returned to Newport on the 24th to resume her training missions.