Tang is an American drink mix brand that was formulated by General Foods Corporation food scientist William A. Mitchell in 1957, and first marketed in powdered form in 1959. The Tang brand is currently owned by Mondelēz International, a 2012 North American company split off Kraft Foods Inc. Sales of Tang were poor until NASA used it on John Glenn's Mercury flight in February 1962, and on subsequent Gemini missions. Since then it has been closely associated with the U.S. human spaceflight program, which created the misconception that Tang was invented for the space program.