Essentially a repeat of the Friendship 7 mission, Aurora 7 completed three orbits of Earth and provided more data on the effects of spaceflight on the human body and how a spacecraft performs in orbit. During the flight, Scott Carpenter performed experiments to study how fluids behave in microgravity and took photos of the Earth. Distracted by views out his window, Carpenter began the reentry process late, had to fix a spacecraft orientation issue, and then activated the retrorockets three seconds late. He overshot his landing site by 400 km; NASA blamed him for the incident, and he never flew again.