Commemoration of John Glenn covers

Colonel John Herschel Glenn Jr. — a decorated veteran, daring test pilot, and pioneering astronaut — became the first American to orbit Earth on February 20, 1962 aboard the Friendship 7 spacecraft. He was forty years old.

Glenn went on to serve as a Democratic U.S. Senator for his home state of Ohio for 24 years. In 1998, aged 77, he again set an astronautical record as the oldest person to enter space.

The last of the surviving Mercury Seven, John Glenn died in Ohio on December 8, 2016.

These covers from @McGeekiest Cachets feature an oval vignette of Glenn in his Mercury spacesuit, and a computer graphics depiction of his first orbital flight, atop a star-filled sky. A coil pair of 25¢ ("E" rate) "Earth" stamps (Scott #2279) pay postage. They were hand-cancelled by a postal clerk at the Post Office nearest to the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, on the day of his death.