COLUMBUS, Ohio — Former astronaut and U.S. Sen. John Glenn has died,
according to the Columbus Dispatch. He was 95.
Glenn was hospitalized “more than a week ago,” according to Ohio State University spokesman Hank Wilson.
Glenn had heart valve replacement surgery in 2014.
He became the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962.
Glenn piloted the Mercury space capsule, dubbed Friendship 7, and circled the planet three times in just under five hours on February 20, 1962. Of the original seven US astronauts who made up Project Mercury — Glenn, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, Gordon Cooper, Scott Carpenter, Walter Schirra and Donald Slayton — Glenn was the last surviving member.
Prior to his career as an astronaut, Glenn flew 149 missions during World War II and the Korean War and received multiple medals and decorations, including the Distinguished Flying Cross on six occasions.
Ukerric
indicated it was a FP overflow but if I am understanding this article correctly, the IMU was feeding the firmware bad data so it might not have been an over/underflow so much as the firmware didn't deal with erroneous data very well. Military grade IMUs are pretty reliable so it will be interesting to hear how they got bad data.
