Carpenter was the fourth American in space, ever, and one of the original Mercury Seven, the very first group of astronauts ever selected by NASA. He flew into orbit in May 1962 on the Aurora 7 spacecraft and, moving at 17,532 miles per hour, circled the Earth three times in five hours before crashing into the ocean near Puerto Rico.

The flight was far from flawless; he landed 250 miles from his intended landing point and the flight director later wrote in his memoir that Carpenter "was completely ignoring our request to check his instruments."