Evening star., 1962-10-03
MERCURY
continued From Page All

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given him a tentative go-ahead
for six orbits.
"Halleluja," the astronaut re-
piled.
He completed his first orbit
of the earth 9:52 am, his Sec
ond at 1928 and his third at
1857.
The launching was a source
of tremendous qualification to
space officials. Everything
worked right except a minor
piece of equipment on the
ground at Grand Canary Is
land. and it was fixed in a
matter of Is minutes. The
weather, the rocket, the space
craft and the man were all go"
from the start.
Fuel Management Good
The astronaut's fuel man
agement procedures were as
tonishingly good. He was al
lowed about so per cent fuel
consumption for his tiny steer
ing rockets in the first three
orbits.
After four hours aloft, about
two and a half orbits after
take-off, he still reported about
90 per cent Of the peroxide fuel
remaining ini1is tanks.
Officials in the Mercury con-
troll center here referred to
rather excellent fuel system
management effected by
Comdr. Schirra."
In the orbital flight OF
Comdr. Carpenter last May,
the fuel levels we're down al
most to the panic point at this
stage of the flight
Part Of the excellent man
agement" was forced on Comdr
schirra by circumstance. His
capsule was designed for roughly
five hours of space flight and
his mission today called for
nearly twice that much. There
fore he had to conserve both
steering fuel and electrical
power at every opportunity.
For about an hour on the
third orbit-roughly from 11:25
am. (EDT) on-Comdr. Schir-
IA was in drifting flight. max
ing no effort to correct his
position or to expend power on
communications or attitude
control.
Comdr. Schirra is to para
chute into the Pacific north
west of Hawaii shortly before
$50 pm.
The 39-year-old Navy avia-
tor thus will see seven sun
rises and seven sunsets today
one of each on the ground and
six of each from in space.
Like his predecessors in
space Comdr. Schirra reported
seeing "ftre-flies" the strange
particles that appear to fly
along with the space craft. He
indicated, as Comdr. Carpenter
had done, that they came from
the capsule itself.
Sees Perth Lights
Like Col. Glenn. the astro-
naut was able to look down
from space and see the lights
Of Perth, turned on late at
night by the friendly citizens
of that West Australian city.
Thank them for me very
much" the spaceman radioed
a ground station in central
Australia.
Comdr. Schirra reported at
1928 am. that his craft. now
under his own control in the
"fly-by-wire" or power steering
method, was handling salts
factorily and his craft was
flying beautifully"
Canary Station Reports
Sigma-7 passed out of range
of the Bermuda tracking sta
ton at 8:26 am. and was ac-
quired by the Canary station
three minutes later. Twenty
two minutes after lift off, at
8:37 am, Comdr. Schirra was
in contact with a station at
Kane, Nigera.
He reported all conditions
normal and said he had checked
out the steering system of his
space craft.
The astronaut checked in
with the Zanzibar tracking
station on a small island off
the east coast Of Africa at 8:46
am. He reported that every
thing was green" meaning that
conditions aboard were salts
factory. However, he remarked
that he was adjusting his suit
teranaraf1lre control although