Launch from Cape Canaveral; landing northwest of Puerto Rico in the vicinity of Grand Turk Island (Atlantic Ocean).

After two ballistic flights by Shepard and Grissom, Glenn became the first American in orbit. Three problems occurred during flight. First, a yaw thruster was causing attitude control problems, forcing the astronaut to abandon the automatic control system for the manual-electrical fly-by-wire system. Second, a faulty switch in the heat shield circuit indicated that the clamp holding the shield had been prematurely released- a signal later found to be false. During re-entry, however, the retropack was not jettisoned but retained as a safety measure to hold the heat shield in place in the event it had loosened. If the signal had been correct, Glenn would have not survived this flight. Moreover, the temperature in Glenn's spacesuit was too warm. During landing the astronaut could not manually control the ship, while more and more fuel was being lost. Glenn decided to deploy the drogue chute manually to regain attitude stability. Just before he reached the switch, the drogue chute opened automatically at 8,5 km (not as planned 6,5 km), but in any case the spacecraft regained stability.

Friendship 7 splashed down in the Atlantic about 40 miles (60 km) away from the planned landing zone. Retrofire calculations had not taken into account the spacecraft weight loss due to the use of onboard consumables. The spacecraft was recovered by the destroyer USS Noa. During pickup Glenn remained in the spacecraft.