Scott Carpenter's Flown Mercury Aurora-7 Spacecraft Clock

This is the Mercury Aurora-7 spacecraft clock that timed the mission for Scott Carpenter, the second American to orbit the Earth in 1962. It still runs today. At T+0, this clock started clicking in the center of the cramped spacecraft's instrument panel - quite loudly as you can hear - and it was a mission critical device for timing the spacecraft’s reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere for the planned splashdown location.
The "5 Min to Retrograde" telelight is mentioned by Carpenter in the voice transcript: “Okay, I'm going to fly-by-wire to Aux Damp, and now - attitudes do not agree. Five minutes to retrograde, light is on. I have a rate of descent, too, of about 10, 12 feet per second.”
Carpenter missed the clock and activated the retrorockets three seconds late; this delay, compounded by a malfunctioning pitch horizon scanner, forced Carpenter to control his reentry manually. As a consequence, Aurora 7 missed its landing area by 250 miles, and Carpenter was left to float alone in his life raft for nearly an hour before he was found. At Cape Canaveral, CBS veteran Walter Cronkite played up the drama by describing Mission Control’s repeated attempts to contact Aurora 7. “While thousands watch and pray,” Cronkite told his audience, “certainly here at Cape Canaveral, the silence is almost intolerable.”
After the flight, this clock was removed from the Mercury spacecraft and given to Carpenter in this custom display, signed by launch pad team leader Guenter Wendt. 61 years later, I bought it from the Carpenters, and reunited it with the Mercury Earth Path Indicator, a black box like this one that would have been next this clock in the center panel. I am trying to determine if it also flew on MA-7.
Photos: www.flickr.com/photos/jurvets...

[@jurvetson]

3 months prior, Carpenter was in the control center, as backup for MA-6, and he called out "Godspeed, John Glenn." Glenn replied: "Roger, liftoff, and the clock is running. We're under way." Here's MA-6 as dramatically reenacted in The Right Stuff, with the clock reference right after launch: ua-cam.com/video/vA_SAUYV4so/v-deo.htmlsi=Xctw-QiRNHZjiPXt

[@RyeOnHam]

That is sweet. I would love to have a reproduction.

[@TroyRubert]

Such a satisfying chunk ticker.

[@jurvetson]

Amazingly, my Soyuz clock is even louder! These are among the loudest clocks I have ever heard... and to be inside a small metal chamber with it going the whole time... It would have driven me bonkers. ua-cam.com/video/N4K1QMTNw8A/v-deo.html

[@TroyRubert]

@@jurvetson I remember watching that when he published it. I love it lol. Marc and his whole team are such a treasure. Thanks for letting us watch Steve.

[@charlienangle3767]

Really interesting artifact! I’d love to know the story of the clock that is currently installed in MA-7 since this one is the original.
I believe the Earth path indicator was eliminated from the control panel after MA-6 and was replaced with additional stowage space.

[@jurvetson]

yes, I think you are right... and interesting that they punted on the globe (while Soyuz continued to use their Globus equivalent). Post flight, there were a lot of unflown replacements for the originals (e.g., on Apollo, they removed the hand controller grips and all of the external EVA hand holds on the CM).

[@huadesoong2656]

If the account is not yours, you need to know what it is doing.@jurvetson