Cape Canaveral - US Senator John Glenn arrived at the Kennedy Space Centre yesterday as the countdown clocks began ticking for his return to orbit this week aboard the space shuttle Discovery.
The 77-year-old Democratic politician, who in 1962 became the first American to orbit the Earth, and six other astronauts are due to blast off from the Florida spaceport at 2 p.m. local time on Thursday on a mission that will include research into ageing.